Nonlinearity compensation in a fiber optic communications system

ABSTRACT

An optical communications link is described, comprising first and second fiber lines in substantial scaled translational symmetry by a common scaling factor with respect to a second-order dispersion coefficient profile (oppositely signed) and with respect to at least one of a loss/gain coefficient profile and a nonlinear coefficient-power product profile for facilitating progressive compensation along the second fiber line of at least one nonlinearity introduced along the first fiber line.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of Provisional Application No.60/585,270, filed Jul. 2, 2004, entitled, “Compensation of FiberNonlinearity Using Scaled Translational Symmetry in Dispersion-ManagedSystems,” which is incorporated by reference herein.

FIELD

This patent specification relates to fiber optic communications. Moreparticularly, this patent specification relates to nonlinearitycompensation in a fiber optic communications link.

BACKGROUND

Fiber optic communication generally involves modulating optical signalsat high bit rates and transmitting the modulated optical signals overoptical fibers. For example, in a wavelength division multiplexed (WDM)fiber optic communications system, optical carrier signals at a sequenceof distinct wavelengths are separately modulated by information channelsand then multiplexed onto a single optical fiber. Efforts continuetoward increasing the data capacity of fiber optic communicationssystems, as well toward increasing the practical transmission distanceof fiber optic spans. Although the development of erbium-doped fiberamplifiers (EDFAs) has virtually eliminated fiber attenuation as anobstacle to achieving longer transmission distances, group velocitydispersion and optical fiber nonlinearities continue to representbarriers to increased transmission capability.

Optical fiber nonlinearities begin to manifest themselves as thecapabilities of the channel are pushed to their limits through the useof increased signal power, higher bit rates, longer transmissiondistances, and increased numbers of channels. One physical mechanismassociated with at least one fiber nonlinearity is the optical Kerreffect, in which the refractive index of an optical fiber varies inaccordance with the intensity of an optical signal. The variation of therefractive index modulates the phase of the optical signal, resulting inadverse effects such as self-phase modulation (SPM), cross-phasemodulation (XPM), and four-wave mixing (FWM). Another physical mechanismassociated with at least one fiber nonlinearity is the Raman effect,arising from energy transfers between the propagating photons and thevibrational/rotational modes of the glass molecules in the fiber.

Because of fiber nonlinearities, there may be substantial restrictionson one or more of signal power, the number of WDM channels that can becarried, bit rates per channel, permissible fiber dispersion amounts,and maximum regenerative repeater spacings. It would be desirable toprovide an optical fiber communications system in which nonlinearitiesinduced by optical fibers are at least partially compensated, while alsoproviding for the necessary dispersion compensation. It would be furtherdesirable to provide such optical fiber communications system usingfiber spans that can be physically realized using known, off-the-shelfoptical components. Other issues arise as would be apparent to apparentto one skilled in the art upon reading the present disclosure.

SUMMARY

An optical communications link is provided, comprising first and secondfiber lines in substantial scaled translational symmetry by a commonscaling factor with respect to a second-order dispersion coefficientprofile (oppositely signed) and with respect to at least one of aloss/gain coefficient profile and a nonlinear coefficient-power productprofile for facilitating progressive compensation along the second fiberline of at least one nonlinearity introduced along the first fiber line.In one embodiment, the substantial scaled translational symmetry by thecommon scaling factor is characterized in that, for a first profile anda second profile, the first profile is in substantial scaledtranslational symmetry by the common scaling factor with the secondprofile if the first profile, when expanded along a first axis by thecommon scaling factor and contracted along a second axis by the commonscaling factor, is in substantial correspondence with the secondprofile.

Also provided is an optical communications link, comprising a firstfiber span including a first fiber line, the first fiber line comprisinga first fiber segment, and a second fiber span including a second fiberline, the second fiber line comprising a second fiber segment. The firstand second fiber lines are in substantial scaled translational symmetryby a first common scaling factor along the first and second fibersegments with respect to a second-order dispersion coefficient profile(oppositely signed) and with respect to at least one of a loss/gaincoefficient profile and a nonlinear coefficient-power product profilefor facilitating progressive compensation along the second fiber segmentof at least one nonlinearity introduced along the first fiber segment.

Also provided is an optical communications link, comprising first andsecond fiber lines characterized by a loss/gain coefficient profilepair, a second-order dispersion coefficient profile pair, and anonlinear coefficient-power product profile pair. For facilitatingprogressive compensation along the second fiber line of at least onenonlinearity introduced along the first fiber line, the first and secondfiber lines are configured such that, for the second-order dispersioncoefficient profile pair and at least one of the loss/gain coefficientprofile pair and the nonlinear coefficient-power product profile pair, afirst profile thereof substantially corresponds to a second profilethereof when the first profile is expanded along a first axis by acommon scaling factor and contracted along a second axis by that commonscaling factor.

Also provided is an optical communications link, comprising a firstfiber span including a first fiber line, the first fiber line comprisinga first fiber segment and having a first loss/gain coefficient profile,a first second-order dispersion coefficient profile, and a firstnonlinear coefficient-power product profile. The optical communicationslink further comprises a second fiber span including a second fiberline, the second fiber line comprising a second fiber segment and havinga second loss/gain coefficient profile, a second second-order dispersioncoefficient profile, and a second nonlinear coefficient-power productprofile. The optical communications link further comprises an opticalphase conjugator optically coupled between the first and second fiberspans, an optical signal received by the first fiber span beingpropagated respectively through the first fiber span, the optical phaseconjugator, and the second fiber span. The first fiber span, the secondfiber span, and the optical phase conjugator are configured such thateach of the following three conditions is satisfied: (i) the secondloss/gain coefficient profile along the second fiber segment is insubstantial scaled translational symmetry with the first loss/gaincoefficient profile along the first fiber segment by a first constant;(ii) the second second-order dispersion coefficient profile along thesecond fiber segment is in substantial scaled translational symmetrywith the first second-order dispersion coefficient profile oppositelysigned along the first fiber segment by the first constant, and (iii)the second nonlinear coefficient-power product profile along the firstfiber segment is in substantial scaled translational symmetry with thefirst nonlinear coefficient-power product profile along the second fibersegment by the first constant. Progressive compensation along the secondfiber segment of at least one nonlinearity introduced along the firstfiber segment is facilitated. In other embodiments, the optical phaseconjugator may be omitted.

Also provided is an optical communications link, comprising a contiguousseries arrangement of N−1 fiber spans, 2≦N−1<10, each fiber span i=1, .. . , N−1 comprising a primary fiber line “i” characterized by an i^(th)parameter set [α_(i)(z), β_(2,i)(z), (γ_(g)P)_(i)(z)] in which α_(i)(z)is a loss/gain coefficient profile, β_(2,i)(z) is a second-orderdispersion coefficient profile, and (γ_(g)P)_(i)(z) is a first nonlinearcoefficient-power profile. The optical communications link furthercomprises an N^(th) fiber span comprising a primary fiber line “N”characterized by an N^(th) parameter set [α_(N)(z), β_(2,N)(z),(γ_(g)P)_(N)(z)]. Along each primary fiber line “i” there is arelationship R_(i)[α_(i)(R_(i)z), −β_(2,i)(R_(i)z),(γ_(g)P)_(i)(R_(i)z)]≈[α_(N)(z), β_(2,N)(z), (γ_(g)P)_(N)(z)] with R_(i)being a real scalar constant, for facilitating compensation of at leastone nonlinear effect in an optical signal propagating through the Nfiber spans.

Also provided is an optical communications link for guiding awavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) optical signal between a firstnode and a second node, the optical signal having a plurality ofchannels. The optical communications link comprises a first fiber spanreceiving the optical signal from the first node and having Kerrnonlinear effects introducing ghost-pulse artifacts into at least one ofthe channels. The first fiber span is dispersion-compensated. Theoptical communications link further comprises a second fiber spantransferring the optical signal to the second node and having Kerrnonlinear effects similar to those of the first fiber span introducingsimilar ghost-pulse artifacts into the at least one channel. Aself-phase modulating device is positioned between the first and secondfiber spans, comprising an array of self-phase modulators correspondingrespectively to each of the plurality of channels configured such thatthe ghost-pulse artifacts introduced by the first fiber span aresubstantially reduced upon arrival of the optical signal at the secondnode.

Also provided is an optical fiber pair for use in a nonlinearity-managedoptical communications link, comprising a first optical fiber and asecond optical fiber. The first optical fiber is an off-the-shelfoptical fiber designed for long-distance transport of optical signalswith minimized attenuation. The first optical fiber is characterized bya first loss coefficient and a first second-order dispersioncoefficient. The second optical fiber is designed for dispersioncompensation and has a second loss coefficient and a second second-orderdispersion coefficient. The second optical fiber is fabricated such thata first ratio of the second second-order dispersion coefficient to thesecond loss coefficient is substantially equal to a second ratio of thefirst second-order dispersion coefficient to the first loss coefficientoppositely signed.

Also provided is an integrated dispersion-compensating module forinstallation at an electrically powered amplifying location of anoptical communications link having first and second transmission fiberlines of known first and second lengths, known first and secondloss/gain coefficient profiles, and known first and second second-orderdispersion coefficient profiles, respectively. The integrateddispersion-compensating module comprises a first dispersion-compensatingfiber line that is connected to the first transmission fiber line andthat has a third loss/gain coefficient profile designed for substantialscaled translational symmetry with the second loss/gain coefficientprofile. The first dispersion-compensating fiber line also has a thirdsecond-order dispersion coefficient profile designed for substantialscaled translational symmetry with the second second-order dispersioncoefficient profile, oppositely signed, by the first constant. Theintegrated dispersion-compensating module further comprises a seconddispersion-compensating fiber line connected to the firstdispersion-compensating fiber line. The second dispersion-compensatingfiber line has a length selected such that an accumulated dispersionassociated with the first and second dispersion-compensating fiber linescompensates an accumulated dispersion associated with the firsttransmission fiber line within a first predetermined tolerance for theknown length of the first transmission fiber line.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an optical communications system according to anembodiment;

FIG. 2 illustrates an optical communications link according to anembodiment;

FIG. 3 illustrates an optical communications link and associatedprofiles according to an embodiment;

FIGS. 4-9 illustrate optical communications links according to one ormore embodiments;

FIG. 10 illustrates two fiber spans in translational symmetry about anoptical phase conjugator, the shaded areas represent two typical fibersegments that are in scaled translational symmetry about the conjugator;

FIG. 11 illustrates the cascade of two fiber lines with oppositenonlinear coefficients but identical linear parameters of dispersion andloss/gain, DCG=dispersion compensation and gain;

FIG. 12 illustrates the signal power and dispersion maps for a series oftwo fiber lines with opposite nonlinear coefficients but identicallinear parameters of dispersion and loss/gain;

FIG. 13 illustrates that the functionality of a fictitious fiber withnegative nonlinearities may be realized equivalently by a conventionalfiber with positive nonlinearities with the help of OPC;

FIG. 14 illustrates a mirror-symmetric configuration of pairs of fiberspans in scaled translational symmetry, with the dispersion in each spancompensated to zero. Top: schematic arrangement of fibers and amplifierswith respect to OPC. Middle: map of signal power P(z) along thepropagation distance z. Bottom: map of accumulated dispersion b2(z)along the propagation distance z;

FIG. 15 illustrates a mirror-symmetric configuration of pairs of fiberspans in scaled translational symmetry, with non-zero residualdispersion in the spans. There are pre- and post-dispersion compensators(DCs), as well as a dispersion conditioner immediately after OPC. Top:schematic arrangement of fibers and amplifiers with respect to OPC.Middle: map of signal power P(z) along the propagation distance z.Bottom: map of accumulated dispersion b2(z) along the propagationdistance z;

FIG. 16 illustrates a mirror-symmetric configuration of pairs of fiberspans in scaled translational symmetry, with non-zero residualdispersion in the spans. There are pre- and post-dispersion compensators(DCs) but no dispersion conditioner at the site of OPC. Top: schematicarrangement of fibers and amplifiers with respect to OPC. Middle: map ofsignal power P(z) along the propagation distance z. Bottom: map ofaccumulated dispersion b2(z) along the propagation distance z;

FIG. 17 illustrates a transmission line consisting of SMFs andslope-matching DCFs;

FIG. 18 illustrates received eye diagrams of the 2nd DEMUX channel. Toprow: transmission results of the setup in FIG. 17. Top-left: fibernonlinearity is OFF, the signal is only impaired by amplifier noise.Top-right: fiber nonlinearity is ON, the signal distortion is onlyincreased slightly. Bottom row: transmission results when the setup ismodified, and the fiber nonlinearity is always ON. Bottom-left: fiberlengths of and input powers to the two types of spans are exactly thesame. Bottom-right: all fiber spans are identical in length and inputsignal power as well as the ordering of fibers (SMF followed by DCF).

FIG. 19 illustrates a system with OPC in the middle and having the“one-for-many” scaled translational symmetry between RDF+SMF and SMF+RDFspans;

FIG. 20 illustrates a typical eye diagram of optical signals received atthe end of the system with the “one-for-many” scaled translationalsymmetry;

FIG. 21 illustrates a comparative system with no “one-for-many” scaledtranslational symmetry but with OPC in the middle;

FIG. 22 illustrates a comparative system with no “one-for-many” scaledtranslational symmetry nor OPC;

FIG. 23 illustrates typical received optical eye diagrams of the twocomparative systems. Top: the system with OPC in the middle; Bottom: thesystem without OPC;

FIG. 24 illustrates a transmission line consisting of +NZDSFs, −NZDSFs,and DCFs compensating the dispersion slope;

FIG. 25 illustrates received eye diagrams of the 2nd DEMUX channel. Toprow: transmission results of the setup in FIG. 24. Top-left: fibernonlinearity is OFF, the signal is only impaired by amplifier noise.Top-right: fiber nonlinearity is ON, no extra penalty is visible. Bottomrow: degraded transmission results when all −NZDSFs are replaced by+NZDSFs. Bottom-left: with OPC. Bottom-right: without OPC, of the 3rdMUX/DEMUX channel;

FIG. 26 illustrates scalability and cascadability of thenonlinearity-suppressed NZDSF transmission line in FIG. 24. Top: thenumber of circulations on each side of OPC is doubled to ten times andthe signal power is increased by 3 dB. Bottom: two identicaltransmission lines as in FIG. 24 are in cascade all-optically and thesignal power is increased by 3 dB. The eye diagrams are still of the 2ndDEMUX channel;

FIG. 27 illustrates a transmission line consisting of ten fiber spans oneach side of OPC, each span has 50 km DSF and a slope-compensating DCF;

FIG. 28 illustrates received eye diagrams of the 2nd DEMUX channel. Toprow: transmission results of the setup in FIG. 27. Top-left: fibernonlinearity is OFF, the signal is only impaired by amplifier noise.Top-right: fiber nonlinearity is ON. Bottom row: transmission resultswhen the setup in FIG. 27 is modified by setting D=0 ps/nm/km for theDCFs while keeping the dispersion slope. Bottom-left: with OPC in themiddle of the link. Bottom-right: when OPC is removed;

FIG. 29 illustrates the signal power and dispersion maps for a cascadeof two fiber spans in scaled translational symmetry with scaling ratioR=1. Top: the variation of signal power along the propagation distance.Bottom: the dispersion map, namely, the variation of accumulateddispersion along the propagation distance;

FIG. 30 illustrates the signal power and dispersion maps for a cascadeof two fiber spans in scaled translational symmetry with lumpeddispersion compensators. Top: the variation of signal power along thepropagation distance. Bottom: the dispersion map, namely, the variationof accumulated dispersion along the propagation distance;

FIG. 31 illustrates a transmission line consists of 6 pairs of fiberspans, with the first span in each pair having 50 km SMF followed by 50km RDF then 16 dB EDFA gain, and the second span having 40 km RDFfollowed by 40 km SMF then 20 dB EDFA gain;

FIG. 32 illustrates a transmission line consists of 6 pairs of fiberspans, with the first span in each pair having 50 km SMF followed by 50km RDF then 16 dB EDFA gain, and the second span having 40 km SMFfollowed by 40 km RDF then 20 dB EDFA gain;

FIG. 33 illustrates the transmission results with δD=0 and amplifiernoise turned off to signify the nonlinear effects. Top: received opticaleye diagram of the scaled translationally symmetric setup in FIG. 31.Bottom: received optical eye diagram of the setup in FIG. 32 withoutscaled translational symmetry;

FIG. 34 illustrates the transmission results with δD=0 and amplifiernoise turned on. Top: received optical eye diagram of the scaledtranslationally symmetric setup in FIG. 31. Bottom: received optical eyediagram of the setup in FIG. 32 without scaled translational symmetry;

FIG. 35 illustrates the transmission results with δD=0.2 ps/nm/km andamplifier noise turned on. Top: received optical eye diagram of thescaled translationally symmetric setup in FIG. 31. Bottom: receivedoptical eye diagram of the setup in FIG. 32 without scaled translationalsymmetry;

FIG. 36 illustrates the transmission results with δD=0.6 ps/nm/km andamplifier noise turned on. Top: received optical eye diagram of thescaled translationally symmetric setup in FIG. 31. Bottom: receivedoptical eye diagram of the setup in FIG. 32 without scaled translationalsymmetry;

FIG. 37 illustrates an optimized system using SMF+RDF and RDF+SMF spanswith the “one-for-many” scaled translational symmetry;

FIG. 38 illustrates a comparative system using all SMF+RDF spans withoutthe “one-for many” scaled translational symmetry;

FIG. 39 illustrates optical eye diagrams at the mid-span oftransmissions. Top: of the optimized system; Bottom: of the comparativesystem;

FIG. 40 illustrates optical eye diagrams at the end of transmissions.Top: of the optimized system; Bottom: of the comparative system;

FIG. 41 illustrates two transmission lines with channelized self-phasemodulation in the middle. TSTL: scaled translationally symmetrictransmission line. DSF: dispersion-shifted fiber for self-phasemodulation;

FIG. 42 illustrates optical eye diagrams at the end of transmissions.Top: of a conventional design without translational symmetry. Middle: ofa system with scaled translational symmetry. Bottom: of a system withscaled translational symmetry and mid-span SPM;

FIG. 43 illustrates an optimized system with “one-for-many” scaledtranslational symmetry and mid-span SPM;

FIG. 44 illustrates a typical eye diagram of optical signals received atthe end of the optimized system with “one-for-many” scaled translationalsymmetry and mid-span SPM;

FIG. 45 illustrates two portions of dispersion-compensating fiberpackaged into a compact module or cabled into a transmission line, wherethe first portion may have an intentionally increased loss coefficientto form a scaled translational symmetry with a transmission fiber, whilethe second portion could have the lowest possible loss coefficient anddoes not need to satisfy any scaling rule;

FIG. 46 illustrates the power map and M-type dispersion map over thetransmission distance of two traditional fiber spans;

FIG. 47 illustrates the power map and N-type dispersion map over thetransmission distance of two matched fiber spans for a scaledtranslational symmetry;

FIG. 48 illustrates three configurations of transmission lines withdifferent dispersion maps and DCMs. Top: an M-type dispersion map usingconventional DCMs; Middle: an N-type dispersion map using conventionalDCMs; Bottom: an N-type dispersion map using optimized DCMs. Acronyms:CDCF—conventional DCF, ODCF—optimized DCF, CDCM_M—conventional DCM in anM-type dispersion map, CDCM_N—conventional DCM in an N-type dispersionmap, ODCM—optimized DCM;

FIG. 49 illustrates a test transmission system consisting of 6recirculating loops with an M-type dispersion map on the left side, anoptical phase conjugator in the middle, then on the right side another 6loops identical to the ones on the left. Each recirculating loopconsists of two identical spans of 100 km SMF followed by a CDCM_M, asshown on the top of FIG. 48;

FIG. 50 illustrates a test transmission system consisting of 6recirculating loops with an N-type dispersion map on the left side, anoptical phase conjugator in the middle, then on the right side another 6loops identical to the ones on the left. Each recirculating loop has 100km SMF followed by a CDCM_N, then 100 km SMF followed by a 20 dB EDFA,as shown in the middle of FIG. 48;

FIG. 51 illustrates a test transmission system consisting of 6recirculating loops with an optimized N-type dispersion map on the leftside, an optical phase conjugator in the middle, then on the right sideanother 6 loops identical to the ones on the left. Each recirculatingloop consists of 100 km SMF followed by an ODCM, then 100 km SMFfollowed by a 20 dB EDFA, as shown at the bottom of FIG. 48; and

FIG. 52 illustrates optical eye diagrams at the end of transmissions.Top: of a conventional line with the M-type dispersion map. Middle: of aline with conventional DCMs in the N-type dispersion map. Bottom: of asystem using optimized DCMs and scaled translational symmetry.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 illustrates an optical communications system 102 according to apreferred embodiment, comprising nodal elements 104, 106, 108, and 110coupled by optical communication links 112, 114, and 116 as shown. Asused herein, optical communications link or fiber optic link refers to acollection of optical elements including at least one optical fibertransporting an optical signal between an optical source and an opticalreceiver, while nodal element refers to an item comprising such opticalsource or receiver. One example of a nodal element is atelecommunications network node (e.g., as would be contained in acentral office) that multiplexes/demultiplexes optical signals, convertsthe signals between electrical and optical form, and provides orprocesses the underlying data. Another example of a nodal element is aregenerative repeater. Typically, nodal elements are involved inelectrical-to-optical and optical-to-electrical conversion, andtherefore represent expensive hardware investments. Thus, generallyspeaking, it is desirable to provide optical communications links thatallow for greater distances and higher data capacities between adjacentnodal elements. It is to be appreciated, however, that one or more ofthe nodal elements 104, 106, 108, and 110 may be all-optical in nature(e.g., all-optical computing networks, all-optical signalprocessors/conditioners, etc.) without departing from the scope of theembodiments.

Optical communications link 114 comprises a first fiber span 118 and asecond fiber span 120. According to an embodiment, the first and secondfiber spans 114 and 118 satisfy at least one of the scaled translationalsymmetry conditions that are described further herein such that, for anoptical signal propagating from the nodal element 106 to the nodalelement 108, the second fiber span 118 at least partially compensatesfor at least one nonlinearity introduced along the first fiber span 114.

FIG. 2 illustrates the fiber span 118 according to an embodiment,comprising a fiber line 202 and a fiber line 204, the fiber line 202having two fiber segments 206 and 208, the fiber line 204 having asingle fiber segment 210. As used herein, fiber span refers to anycontiguous portion of an optical communications link that includes atleast one optical fiber, and may include amplifiers or other opticalprocessing elements positioned therealong. As used herein, fiber linerefers to a contiguous section of optical fiber positioned along a fiberspan. A fiber line may itself comprise multiple fiber segments withdifferent properties that are spliced together or otherwise connected toeach other.

As illustrated in FIG. 2, fiber span 118 further comprises amplifiers212, 214, and 216 connected in a manner that provides the requiredamplifications for accommodating one or more of the embodiments herein.In subsequent drawings and descriptions herein, it may be presumed thatamplifiers are provided at various points along a fiber span providingthe required amplifications, even where amplifiers are not explicitlydrawn. One skilled in the art would readily be able to deriveappropriate placements and parameters for such amplifiers, such aserbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs), Raman-pumped amplifiers, etc., inview of the present teachings, and therefore in many drawings anddescriptions herein such amplifiers might be omitted for clarity in viewof the particular context. It is to be appreciated that theconfiguration of FIG. 2 represents but one example of many differentpossibilities for the selection and sequencing of the various fiberlines, fiber segments, amplifiers, and other components according to thepresent teachings.

By way of example, as the above terms are used herein, a typicalwide-area optical communications network having multiple nodal elementsmay comprises one or more optical communications links between any twoadjacent nodal elements. A typical optical communications link maycomprise one or more fiber spans. A typical fiber span may comprise oneor more fiber lines, along with zero or more amplifiers or other opticalprocessing elements. A typical fiber line may consist of a single,uniform fiber segment, or may comprise two or more fiber segments havingdifferent properties. For example, a fiber line may comprise a“standard” single-mode transmission fiber segment for propagating anoptical signal across a large distance connected to adispersion-compensating fiber segment.

Fiber lines and fiber segments may be characterized by a plurality ofpropagation characteristic profiles, each propagation characteristicprofile describing the dependence of a propagation characteristic on adistance along the direction of propagation (termed the z-directionherein) from a reference point. One such propagation characteristicprofile is a loss/gain coefficient profile α(z) describing thedependence of the loss-gain coefficient α on the distance along thedirection of propagation from a reference point. Another suchpropagation characteristic profile is a second-order dispersioncoefficient profile β₂(z) describing the dependence of the second-orderdispersion coefficient β₂ on the distance along the direction ofpropagation from a reference point. Another such propagationcharacteristic profile is a third-order dispersion coefficient profileβ₃(z) describing the dependence of the third-order dispersioncoefficient β₃ on the distance along the direction of propagation from areference point. For many optical fibers in use today, the α(z) andβ₂(z) profiles of the fiber segments are constant along the entirelength of a fiber segment. If a fiber line contains two such adjacentfiber segments having different properties, the α(z) and β₂(z) profilesof the fiber line can be represented by straight, horizontal plots withstep-function variations at the z-location of the intersection of thetwo fiber segments. Advantageously, the embodiments herein areapplicable for many different optical fiber types having constant orspatially varying propagation characteristics.

Other such propagation characteristic profiles include a Kerrcoefficient profile γ(z) and a Raman coefficient profile g(z). Each ofthe Kerr coefficient profile γ(z) and Raman coefficient profile g(z)represents one type of a nonlinear coefficient profile that isreferenced herein as γ_(g)(z). For clarity, it is to be appreciated thatγ_(g)(z) represents a more generalized nonlinear coefficient profile andis not necessarily limited to the Kerr coefficient profile γ(z). Forexample, in one or more of the embodiments, γ_(g)(z) can correspond tothe Raman coefficient profile g(z) or to a different nonlinearcoefficient that is important in any particular physical context.Another propagation characteristic profile, termed herein a nonlinearcoefficient-power product profile having a symbol (γ_(g)P)(z), comprisesthe product γ_(g)(z)P(z), where P(z) represents a power profile for theoptical signal propagating down the fiber line/segment. If a particularfiber line/segment is not yet installed in an operational opticalcommunications link, (γ_(g)P)(z) can be defined by using a nominal,targeted, or otherwise computable power P(z), such as can be yielded,for example, by assuming a value of P₀ at a reference location andcomputing P(z) using the known loss/gain coefficient profile α(z).

FIG. 3 illustrates an optical communications link 302 according to anembodiment that can be used, for example, in coupling between twoadjacent ones of the nodal elements of FIG. 1, supra. Opticalcommunications link 302 comprises a first fiber span 304 including afirst fiber line 310. For the embodiment of FIG. 3, the first fiber line310 simply comprises a single first fiber segment 312 although, notably,additional fiber segments can be included in the first fiber line 310 inother embodiments. The first fiber line 310 comprises a first loss/gaincoefficient profile α(z), a first second-order dispersion coefficientprofile β₂(z), and a first nonlinear coefficient-power product profile(γ_(g)P)(z), where z is measured from a reference point along the firstfiber line 310 that may be located, but is not required to be located,at an input to the first fiber line 310. Optical communications link 302further comprises a second fiber span 306 including a second fiber line314. For the embodiment of FIG. 3, the second fiber line 314 simplycomprises a single second fiber segment 316 although, notably,additional fiber segments can be included in the second fiber line 314in other embodiments. The second fiber line 314 comprises a secondloss/gain coefficient profile α′(z), a second second-order dispersioncoefficient profile β′₂(Z), and a second nonlinear coefficient-powerproduct profile (γ_(g)P)′(z), where z is measured from a reference pointalong the second fiber line 314 that may be located, but is not requiredto be located, at an input to the second fiber line 314.

Optical communications link 302 further comprises an optical phaseconjugator 308 optically coupled between the first fiber span 304 andthe second fiber span 306, an optical signal received by the first fiberspan 304 being propagated respectively through the first fiber span 304,the optical phase conjugator 308, and the second fiber span 306.Preferably, the first fiber span, the second fiber span, and the opticalphase conjugator are configured such that, for locations lying along thefirst fiber segment 312 and the second fiber segment 316, α′(z) is insubstantial scaled translational symmetry with α′(z) by a first constantR, β′₂(z) is in substantial scaled translational symmetry with β₂(z)oppositely signed (that is, with −β₂(z)) by the first constant R, and(γ_(g)P)′(z) is in substantial scaled translational symmetry with(γ_(g)P)(z) by the first constant R, whereby progressive compensationalong the second fiber segment 316 of at least one nonlinearityintroduced along the first fiber segment 312 is facilitated.

As indicated by the plots in FIG. 3, substantial scaled translationalsymmetry characterizes a relationship between a first profile and asecond profile if the first profile, when expanded along a first axis bya scaling factor R and contracted along a second axis by the scalingfactor R, is in substantial correspondence with said second profile. Inthe embodiment of FIG. 3, the first axis is the ordinate and the secondaxis is the abscissa of the profiles shown, although the scope of thepresent teachings is not necessarily so limited. Stated in algebraicvector form, the conditions illustrated in the plots of FIG. 3 can beexpressed as R[α(Rz), −β₂(Rz), (γ_(g)P)(Rz)]≈[α′(z), β′₂(z),(γ_(g)P)′(z)].

The substantial correspondence between the scaled (and, effectively,translated) plots is generally more important near the inputs where(γ_(g)P)(z) and (γ_(g)P)′(z) are relatively high, and generally lessimportant later on where (γ_(g)P)(z) and (γ_(g)P)′(z) are relativelylow. The particular degrees of correspondence between the scaled andtranslated plots required for sufficient facilitation of nonlineareffect compensation would be readily determinable, whether empirically,by simulation, or by derivation, by a person skilled in the art withoutundue experimentation in view of the present disclosure.

In one embodiment the scaling factor R lies between about 0.05 and 20.In another embodiment, the scaling factor R lies between about 0.1 and0.2 or between about 5 and 10. As indicated by the above-referencedvalue ranges for R, which are presented only by way of example and notby way of limitation, the length ratios between the first fiber segment312 and the second fiber segment 316 can vary widely without departingfrom the scope of the embodiments. For R>1, the first fiber segment 312is longer than the second fiber segment 316, while for R<1, the firstfiber segment 312 is shorter than the second fiber segment 316. In otherembodiments, the optical phase conjugator 308 can be omitted inconjunction with providing for certain optical signal phaserelationships as described further hereinbelow. In one embodiment, theoptical communications link 302 is configured such that a complexamplitude of the optical signal at an input to the second fiber line 314is proportional to a complex conjugate of the complex amplitude of theoptical signal at an input to the first fiber line 310.

In one embodiment, the first and second fiber lines 310 and 314 furthercomprise third-order dispersion coefficient profiles β₃(z) and β′₃(z)along that are in substantial scaled translational symmetry along thefirst and second segments 312 and 316. For this embodiment, each of thefirst and second fiber segments 312 and 316 may comprise a non-zerodispersion-shifted fiber (NZDSF) or, alternatively, may comprise adispersion-shifted fiber (DSF).

In another embodiment, the constraint in which all three of α(z), β(z)(oppositely signed), and (γP)(z) are in substantial scaled symmetry isat least partially relaxed. For this embodiment, the first and secondfiber lines 310 and 314 are in substantial scaled translational symmetryby a common scaling factor R with respect to β(z) (oppositely signed)and with respect to one or both of α(z) and (γP)(z) along the first andsecond fiber segments 312 and 316 for facilitating progressivecompensation along the second fiber segment 316 of at least onenonlinearity introduced along the first fiber segment 312.

FIG. 4 illustrates the optical communications link 302 of FIG. 3 asredrawn with simplified notation for clarity in describing furtherembodiments herein. In addition to removing amplifiers for clarity, thefiber span/line/segment notations have been replaced by a simplelettering scheme in which a contiguous length of optical fiber isdenoted by a loop and identified by a letter. Moreover, the presence ofsubstantial scaled translational symmetry between two such contiguouslengths of optical fiber by a common scaling factor, whether it be withrespect to all three of α(z), β(z) (oppositely signed), and (γ_(g)P)(z),or whether it be with respect to β(z) (oppositely signed) and one orboth of α(z) and (γ_(g)P)(z), is denoted by prime symbol relationships(e.g., A and A′), and, without loss of generality, the acronymed phrase“ST symmetry” is used to identify such condition between A and A′.Finally, without loss of generality, the contiguous lengths of opticalfibers A and A′ are each referred to as fiber spans, it being understoodthat they are particular cases from the broader definition of fiber spansupra applicable when a fiber span consists of a single fiber line thatconsists of a single fiber segment.

FIG. 5 illustrates an optical communications link 502 according to analternative embodiment to that of FIGS. 3 and 4 having the optical phaseconjugator omitted. FIG. 6 illustrates an optical communications link602 with enhanced notations in which a larger double-looped symbolrepresents a transmission fiber (TF) span (e.g., that would extend overtens or hundreds of kilometers) and in which a smaller single-loopedsymbol represents a dispersion-compensating fiber (DCF). Opticalcommunications link 602 comprises a TF span A in ST symmetry a TF spanA′, and a DCF span B in ST symmetry with a DCF span B′. The DCF span Bis designed for compensating the dispersion accumulated in TF span A,while the DCF span B′ is designed for compensating the dispersionaccumulated in TF span A′.

Thus, advantageously, the fiber spans A, B, A′, and B′ are in abeneficial cross-paired relationship that simultaneously and efficientlyachieves multiple goals. In particular, the TF span A is paired with DCFspan B for dispersion compensation while at the same time being pairedwith TF span A′ for nonlinearity compensation. Likewise, the TF span A′is paired with DCF span B′ for dispersion compensation while at the sametime being paired with TF span A for nonlinearity compensation.

For clarity of presentation, the notations of FIGS. 7A-7O hereinbelowfollow the notational schemes of FIG. 6. FIGS. 7A-7O illustrate, by wayof example and not by way of limitation, some of the many advantageousways that fiber spans in STS symmetry may be arranged in accordance withthe present teachings, where boxes labeled OPC are optical phaseconjugators and dotted-line boxes represent commondispersion-compensating module packages (or such packages co-locatedwith an OPC), and where optical signals propagate from the left side tothe right side of the page.

Referring to FIGS. 7A-7O, in one embodiment, each of the TF spans A, A′.C. and C′ has a constant α(z) value that is less than 0.5, and each ofthe DCF spans B, B′, D, and D′ has a constant α(z) value that is greaterthan 1.0. The scaling factors associated with the different STS symmetrypairs can be different or they can be the same.

FIG. 8 illustrates, with reference back to the nomenclature andnotational schemes of FIGS. 3-5, supra, an optical communications link802 according to an embodiment comprising a fiber span 804 having afiber line 806, the fiber line 806 having fiber segments 808 and 810.The optical communications link 802 further comprises an optical phaseconjugator (that is omitted in other embodiments). The opticalcommunications link 802 further comprises a fiber span 812 having afiber line 814, the fiber line 814 having fiber segments 816 and 818positioned as shown. For this embodiment, the fiber segments 808 and 816are in substantial scaled translational symmetry, whether it be withrespect to all three of α(z), β(z) (oppositely signed), and (γ_(g)P)(z),or whether it be with respect to β(z) (oppositely signed) and one orboth of α(z) and (γ_(g)P)(z), but the fiber segments 810 and 818 do notsatisfy such condition. However, the fiber segments 810 and 818 areconnected to fiber segments 808 and 816 at “z” locations such that(γ_(g)P)(z) is generally small compared to a maximum value thereof. Thisnon-satisfaction does not substantially confound the progressivecompensation in fiber line 814 of nonlinearities introduced in fiberline 806 because the power levels in the fiber segments 810 and 818 arerelatively low and nonlinearities are therefore relatively small.However, this non-satisfaction is a constraint relaxation thataccommodates length variations in the fiber lines 810 and 818 such thatother system design goals including dispersion compensation can beproperly addressed. In one embodiment, the fiber segments 810 and 818are connected to fiber segments 808 and 816 at “z” locations where(γ_(g)P)(z) is less than 10% of its maximum value along fiber segments808 and 816.

A set of further embodiments is now described with respect to FIGS.7A-7O and FIG. 8. For these embodiments, any combination of the STsymmetry pairs A-A′, B-B′, C-C′, and D-D′ in FIGS. 7A-7O can be replacedby a pair of spans similar to the spans 804 and 806 of FIG. 8 in whichonly the first fiber segments of the spans (e.g., 808 and 816) meet theST symmetry condition while the second fiber segments of the spans(e.g., 810 and 818 do not meet an ST symmetry condition, provided thatthe second fiber segments connect to the first fiber segments where thevalue of (γ_(g)P)(z) is generally small compared to a maximum valuethereof. Thus, for example, letting X represent the fiber segment 810and Y′ represent the fiber segment 818, the ST symmetry pair C-C′ inFIG. 7N can become the pair (C & X)-(C′ & Y′) according to theseembodiments (and any combinations of C-C′ and the other ST symmetrypairs) without confounding the nonlinearity compensation thereof.Benefits similar to those described with respect to FIG. 8 supra areadvantageously achieved.

FIG. 9 illustrates an optical communications link 902 for guiding awavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) optical signal between a firstnodal element, or node, 904 and a second node 906, the optical signalhaving a plurality of channels. The optical communications link 902comprises a first fiber span 908 receiving the optical signal from thefirst node 904 and having Kerr nonlinear effects introducing ghost-pulseartifacts into at least one of the channels. The first fiber span 908 isdispersion-compensated. The optical communications link 902 furthercomprises a second fiber span 910 transferring the optical signal to thesecond node 906 and having Kerr nonlinear effects similar to those ofthe first fiber span introducing similar ghost-pulse artifacts into theat least one channel. The optical communications link 902 furthercomprises a self-phase modulating device 912 positioned between thefirst and second fiber spans 908 and 910, comprising an array 914 ofself-phase modulators corresponding respectively to each of theplurality of channels configured such that the ghost-pulse artifactsintroduced by the first fiber span 908 are substantially reduced uponarrival of the optical signal at the second node 906. In one embodiment,each of the self-phase modulators introduces an approximately 180-degreephase shift at a nominal power level of pulse peaks of the associatedchannel. The self-phase modulating device further comprises a WDMdemultiplexer 916 coupling the first fiber span 908 to the self-phasemodulators and a WDM multiplexer 918 coupling the self-phase modulatorsto the second fiber span. The self-phase modulators can comprise Kerroptical fibers, nonlinear lithium niobate waveguides, and/orsemiconductor optical amplifiers. Preferably, the self-phase modulatorseach have a dispersion characteristic designed to limit spectralbroadening of the phase-modulated pulses in the associated channel.

Whereas many alterations and modifications of the present invention willno doubt become apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art afterhaving read the descriptions herein, it is to be understood that theparticular embodiments shown and described by way of illustration are inno way intended to be considered limiting. Therefore, reference to thedetails of the embodiments are not intended to limit their scope, whichis limited only by the scope of the claims set forth below.

Group-velocity dispersion and optical nonlinearity are the majorlimiting factors in high-speed long-distance fiber-optic transmissions[1, 2]. Dispersion-compensating fibers (DCFs) have been developed tooffset the dispersion effects of transmission fibers over a widefrequency band. The most advanced DCFs are even capable ofslope-matching compensation, namely, compensating the dispersion and thedispersion slope of the transmission fiber simultaneously [3, 4].Nevertheless, DCFs could hardly be designed and fabricated to matchexactly the dispersion and the slope of transmission fiberssimultaneously. In general, it is difficult to perfectly compensate thefiber dispersion across a wide frequency band. There are always residualdispersion and higher order derivatives, even using the bestslope-matching DCFs [5, 6, 7]. The significance of the residualdispersions increases as the total signal band-width becomes wider [8].It has been proposed for some time that optical phase conjugation (OPC)may be employed in the middle of a transmission line to equalize thedispersion effect of the transmission fibers [9]. Furthermore,theoretical and experimental studies have proved the feasibility ofusing OPC to compensate the fiber nonlinearities, at least partially[10, 11, 12]. In the past, the application of OPC has been limited bythe lack of performing conjugators that require low pump powers, operateover wide bandwidths, and suffer low penalties. Such technicaldifficulties and the inability of compensating the dispersion slope havebeen to OPC's disadvantage in competing with DCFs as dispersioncompensators. However, it is noted that the performance of optical phaseconjugators has recently been and will continue to be improvedsignificantly [13, 14]. Moreover, we argue that OPC and modern DCFs maywork together nicely to complement each other's functionalities. On onehand, transmission fibers and DCFs may be combined into fiber spans withzero dispersion slope, then OPC is able to equalize the residualdispersion and the slope of dispersion slope among such spans. On theother hand, the flexible designs and various choices in the dispersionparameters of specialty fibers, in particular DCFs, make it possible toconstruct fiber transmission lines that manifest “scaled symmetries”about the OPC, which are desired properties to effectively suppressfiber nonlinearities [15, 16, 17].

Based on the nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE), it has been shownthat OPC enables one fiber transmission line to propagate inversely(thus to restore) an optical signal that is nonlinearly distorted by theother, when the two fiber lines are mirror-symmetric about the OPC inthe scaled sense [11, 15, 17]. Preliminary experiments have confirmedsuch effect of nonlinear compensation [11, 12]. Unfortunately, themirror symmetry requires that the conjugating fiber segments haveopposite loss/gain coefficients, the same sign for the second-orderdispersions, and opposite third-order dispersions. These conditions arenot conveniently fulfilled in many practical fiber transmission systems.In particular, a mirror-symmetric signal power profile is possible onlywhen some transmission fibers are made distributively amplifying bymeans of distributed Raman pumping [18] or using distributed Er-dopedfiber amplifiers (EDFAs) [19], so to obtain a constant net gain incorrespondence to the loss coefficient of other fibers, or all fibersare rendered lossless. Recent experiments [20, 21, 22] have indeeddemonstrated near constant-power or low power-excursion opticaltransmissions. However, there are still concerns of cost, reliability,and double-Rayleigh-scattering noise with distributive Ramanamplification [18]. For any distributive amplifier, the loss of pumppower makes it difficult to maintain a constant gain in a longtransmission fiber. Consequently, the mismatch in signal power profilesdegrades the result of nonlinear compensation. Yet another shortcomingof the previous schemes [11, 12] is that they do not compensatehigher-order dispersions, which could turn into a significant limitationin wide-band transmission systems. By contrast, a recently proposedmethod of nonlinearity compensation using scaled translational symmetryrequires that the conjugating fiber segments have the same sign for theloss/gain coefficients, opposite second-order dispersions, and the samesign for the third-order dispersions [16, 17]. Such conditions arenaturally satisfied, at least approximately, in conventional fibertransmission systems, where, for example, a standard single-mode fiber(SMF) may be paired with a DCF as conjugating counterparts. In Refs.[16, 17], we have briefly touched upon the basic idea and feasibility ofnonlinearity compensation using scaled translational symmetry. In thispaper, we shall present an extensive and systematic study of the theoryand practical applications of scaled translational symmetry in fibertransmission systems for nonlinearity compensation. Most importantly, wedemonstrate that the combination of scaled nonlinearity, translationalsymmetry, OPC, and slope-matching dispersion compensation makes ourproposals of nonlinearity compensation rather practical and highlyperforming. The notion of scaling fiber nonlinearity is not entirelynew. The concept was proposed and utilized by Watanabe et al. in their1996 paper [11], which however was limited to the mirror-symmetricconfiguration, and presented embodiments using segmented fibers whichmight not be convenient to implement in practice. Even though we may bethe first to emphasize the concept and importance of scaledtranslational symmetry to nonlinearity compensation in fibertransmission lines [16, 17], it was noted previously by Marhic et al.[23] that two fibers having opposite dispersions and with OPC in themiddle may compensate each other's Kerr nonlinear effects. However, Ref.[23] did not discuss any practical embodiment, nor did it mention thescaling of nonlinearity which is indispensable for practicallyimplementing translationally symmetric transmission lines. Both Refs.[11, 23] had the effect of dispersion-slope neglected, and did not worryabout the Raman effect among wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM)channels. By contrast, this present paper strives for the mostgenerality, and it might be one of the early proposals for optimizingfiber transmission systems by combining the necessary and available fourelements, namely, scaled nonlinearity, translational symmetry, OPC, andslope-matching dispersion compensation. It is this combination thatsignifies the present work and makes our proposals of nonlinearitycompensation rather practical and highly performing. Furthermore, it isfound that even without OPC, the combination of the remaining threeelements could still significantly improve the performance of fibertransmission lines. Two fiber spans in a scaled translational symmetrymay cancel out their intra-channel nonlinear effects to a large extent,and a significant reduction of intra-channel nonlinear effects may beachieved in a long-distance transmission line consisting of multiplepairs of scaled translationally symmetric spans.

Basics of Dispersive and Nonlinear Wave Propagation in Fibers

The eigenvalue solution of Maxwell's equations in a single-mode fiberdetermines its transverse model function and propagation constant β(ω)as a function of the optical frequency ω [24, 25]. When a fibertransmission line is heterogeneous along its length, the propagationconstant could also depend on the longitudinal position z in the line,and may be denoted as β(z, ω). The slow-varying envelope form,$\begin{matrix}{{{E\left( {z,t} \right)} = {{A\left( {z,t} \right)}{\exp\left\lbrack {{i{\int^{z}{{\beta_{0}(\zeta)}\quad{\mathbb{d}\zeta}}}} - {i\quad\omega_{0}t}} \right\rbrack}}},} & (1)\end{matrix}$with${{\beta_{0}(z)}\overset{def}{=}{\beta\left( {\omega_{0},z} \right)}},$is often employed to represent an optical signal, which may be of asingle time-division multiplexed channel or a superposition of multipleWDM channels. The evolution of the envelope A(z, t) in an optical fiberof length L is governed by the nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE)[17, 25], $\begin{matrix}{{{\frac{\partial{A\left( {z,t} \right)}}{\partial z} + {\sum\limits_{k = 2}^{+ \infty}\quad{\frac{i^{k - 1}{\beta_{k}(z)}}{k!}\left( \frac{\partial}{\partial t} \right)^{k}{A\left( {z,t} \right)}}} + {\frac{\alpha(z)}{2}{A\left( {z,t} \right)}}} = {{i\quad{\gamma(z)}{{A\left( {z,t} \right)}}^{2}{A\left( {z,t} \right)}} + {{i\left\lbrack {{g\left( {z,t} \right)} \otimes {{A\left( {z,t} \right)}}^{2}} \right\rbrack}{A\left( {z,t} \right)}}}},} & (2)\end{matrix}$∀zε[0, L], in the retarded reference frame with the origin z=0 movingalong the fiber at the signal group-velocity. In the above equation,α(z) is the loss/gain coefficient, $\begin{matrix}{{\beta_{k}(t)}\overset{def}{=}{\frac{1}{2\quad{\beta_{0}(z)}}\frac{\partial^{k}\left\lbrack {\beta^{2}\left( {\omega,z} \right)} \right\rbrack}{\partial\omega^{k}}{_{\omega = \omega_{0}}{,{\forall{k \geq 2}},}}}} & (3)\end{matrix}$are the z-dependent dispersion coefficients of various orders [26], γ(z)is the Kerr nonlinear coefficient of the fiber, g(z, t) is the impulseresponse of the Raman gain spectrum, and {circle around (x)} denotes theconvolution operation [17]. Note that all fiber parameters are allowedto be z-dependent, that is, they may vary along the length of the fiber.Because of the definition in terms of derivatives, β₂ may be called thesecond-order dispersion (often simply dispersion in short), while β₃ maybe called the third-order dispersion, so on and so forth. Theengineering community has used the term dispersion for the parameterD=dv_(g) ⁻¹/dλ, namely, the derivative of the inverse of group-velocitywith respect to the optical wavelength, and dispersion slope for S=dD/dλ[1]. Although β₂ and D are directly proportional to each other, therelationship between β₃ and S is more complicated. To avoid confusion,this paper adopts the convention that dispersion and second-orderdispersion are synonyms for the β₂ parameter, while dispersion slope andthird-order dispersion refer to the same β₃ parameter, and similarly theslope of dispersion slope is the same thing as the fourth-orderdispersion β₄.

Had there been no nonlinearity, namely γ(z)=g(z, t)≡0, equation (2)would reduce to, $\begin{matrix}{{{\frac{\partial{A\left( {z,t} \right)}}{\partial z} + {\sum\limits_{k = 2}^{+ \infty}\quad{\frac{i^{k - 1}{\beta_{k}(z)}}{k!}\left( \frac{\partial}{\partial k} \right)^{k}{A\left( {z,t} \right)}}} + {\frac{\alpha(z)}{2}{A\left( {z,t} \right)}}} = 0},} & (4)\end{matrix}$which could be solved analytically using, for example, the method ofFourier transform. Let F denote the linear operator of Fouriertransform, a signal A(z, t) in the time domain can be representedequivalently in the frequency domain by, $\begin{matrix}{{\overset{\sim}{A}\left( {z,\omega} \right)}\overset{def}{=}{{{FA}\left( {z,t} \right)} = {{\int{{A\left( {z,t} \right)}{\exp\left( {{\mathbb{i}}\quad\omega\quad t} \right)}\quad{\mathbb{d}t}}} = {\int{{E\left( {z,t} \right)}{\exp\left\lbrack {{{\mathbb{i}}\left( {\omega_{0} + \omega} \right)}t} \right\rbrack}\quad{{\mathbb{d}t}.}}}}}} & (5)\end{matrix}$Through a linear fiber, a signal Ã(z₁, ω) at z=z₁ would be transformedinto Ã(z₂, ω)=H(z₁, z₂, ω)Ã(z₁, ω) at z₂≧z₁, where the transfer functionH(z₁, z₂, ω) is defined as, $\begin{matrix}{{H\left( {z_{1},z_{2},\omega} \right)}\overset{def}{=}{{\exp\left\lbrack {{i{\sum\limits_{k = 2}^{+ \infty}\quad{\frac{\omega^{k}}{k!}{\int_{z_{1}}^{z_{2}}{{\beta_{k}(z)}\quad{\mathbb{d}z}}}}}} - {\frac{1}{2}{\int_{z_{1}}^{z_{2}}{{\alpha(z)}{\mathbb{d}z}}}}} \right\rbrack}.}} & (6)\end{matrix}$In the time domain, the signals are related linearly as A(z₂, t)=P(z₁,z₂)A(z, t), with the linear operator P(z₁, z₂) given by, $\begin{matrix}{{P\left( {z_{1},z_{2}} \right)}\overset{def}{=}{F^{- 1}{H\left( {z_{1},z_{2},\omega} \right)}{F.}}} & (7)\end{matrix}$Namely, P(z₁, z₂) is the concatenation of three linear operations:firstly Fourier transform is applied to convert a temporal signal into afrequency signal, which is then multiplied by the transfer functionH(z₁, z₂, ω), finally the resulted signal is inverse Fourier transformedback into the time domain. In terms of the impulse response,$\begin{matrix}{{{h\left( {z_{1},z_{2},t} \right)}\overset{def}{=}{F^{- 1}\left\lbrack {H\left( {z_{1},z_{2},\omega} \right)} \right\rbrack}},} & (8)\end{matrix}$P(z₁, z₂) may also be represented as,P(z ₁ ,z ₂)=h(z ₁ ,z ₂ ,t){circle around (x)},  (9)where {circle around (x)} denotes functional convolution. That is, theaction of P(z₁, z₂) on a time-dependent function is to convolve thefunction with the impulse response. All linear operators P(z₁, z₂) withz₁≦z₂, also known as propagators, form a semigroup [27] for the linearevolution governed by equation (4).

However, the existence of nonlinear terms in equation (2) makes theequation much more difficult to solve. Fortunately, when the signalpower is not very high so that the nonlinearity is weak and may betreated as perturbation, the output from a nonlinear fiber line may berepresented by a linearly dispersed version of the input, plus nonlineardistortions expanded in power series of the nonlinear coefficients [28].In practical transmission lines, although the end-to-end response of along link may be highly nonlinear due to the accumulation ofnonlinearity through many fiber spans, the nonlinear perturbation termsof higher orders than the first are usually negligibly small within eachfiber span. Up to the first-order perturbation, the signal A(z₂, t) as aresult of nonlinear propagation of a signal A(z₁, t) from z₁ to z₂≧z₁,may be approximated using, $\begin{matrix}{{{A_{0}\left( {z_{2},t} \right)} = {{P\left( {z_{1},z_{2}} \right)}{A\left( {z_{1},t} \right)}}},} & (10) \\\begin{matrix}{{A_{1}\left( {z_{2},t} \right)} = {\int_{z_{1}}^{z_{2}}{{P\left( {z,z_{2}} \right)}\left\{ {{i\quad{\gamma(z)}{{A_{0}\left( {z,t} \right)}}^{2}{A_{0}\left( {z,t} \right)}} +} \right.}}} \\{{\left. {{i\left\lbrack {{g\left( {z,t} \right)} \otimes {{A_{0}\left( {z,t} \right)}}^{2}} \right\rbrack}{A_{0}\left( {z,t} \right)}} \right\}{\mathbb{d}z}},}\end{matrix} & (11)\end{matrix}$where A(z₂, t)≈A₀(z₂, t) amounts to the zeroth-order approximation whichneglects the fiber nonlinearity completely, whereas the result offirst-order approximation A(z₂, t)≈A₀(z₂, t)+A₁(z₂, t) accounts inaddition for the lowest-order nonlinear products integrated over thefiber length. The term A₁(•, t) is called the first-order perturbationbecause it is linearly proportional to the nonlinear coefficients γ(•)and g(•, t).Principles of Dispersion and Nonlinearity Compensation Using OPC

Dispersion equalization by OPC may be explained nicely using transferfunctions in the frequency domain [29]. Optical signals at a fixedposition in a fiber, possibly of many channels wavelength-divisionmultiplexed together, may be described by a total electrical fieldE(t)=A(t)exp(−iω₀t), with the position parameter omitted. The signalsare fully represented by the slow-varying envelope A(t), orequivalently, by the Fourier transform of the envelope Ã(ω)=FA(t).Leaving aside the loss/gain and neglecting the nonlinearities, thelinear dispersive effect of a fiber transmission line is described by amultiplicative transfer function, $\begin{matrix}{{{H(\omega)} = {\exp\left( {i{\sum\limits_{k = 2}^{+ \infty}\quad\frac{b_{k}\omega^{k}}{k!}}} \right)}},} & (12)\end{matrix}$withb _(k) =∫β _(k)(z)dz ₁, ∀k≧2,  (13)being the dispersions accumulated along the fiber length, and thedispersion parameters {β_(k)}_(k≧2) being defined as in equation (3). Afiber line with such dispersion parameters transforms a signal Ã(ω) intoH(ω)Ã(ω), while OPC acts as a linear operator that changes the samesignal into OPC[Ã(ω)]=Ã*(−ω). Consider two fiber transmission lines thatare not necessarily identical, but nevertheless have accumulateddispersions satisfying the conditions,b _(k) ^(R)=(−1)^(k) b _(k) ^(L), ∀k≧2,  (14)so that H_(R)(ω)=H_(L)(−ω), where the super- and sub-scripts L, R areused to distinguish the two fiber lines on the left and rightrespectively. When OPC is performed in the middle of the two fiberlines, the entire setup transforms an input signal Ã(ω) into,H _(R)(ω)OPC[H _(L)(ω)Ã(ω)]=H _(R)(ω)H* _(L)(−ω)Ã*(−ω)=Ã*(−ω).  (15)If Ã(ω) is the Fourier transform of A(t), then the output signal Ã*(−ω)corresponds to A*(t) in the time domain, which is an undistorted replicaof the input signal A(t) up to complex conjugation. This proves that thedispersion of a transmission line with OPC in the middle may becompensated over a wide bandwidth, when the dispersion coefficients ofthe odd orders on the two sides of OPC, b_(2k+1) ^(L) and b_(2k+1) ^(R)with k≧1, in particular the third-order dispersions b₃ ^(L) and b₃ ^(R),are both compensated to zero, or they are exactly opposite to eachother, while the even-order dispersion coefficients are the same on bothsides. If a link has b₃ ^(R)=b₃ ^(L), or even b₃ ^(R)=b₃ ^(L)=0, then itis compensated at least up to and including the fourth-order dispersionb₄. It is worth pointing out that the center frequency of the signalband may be shifted by the OPC from ω₀ ^(L) on the left side to ω₀ ^(R)on the right side, ω₀ ^(L)≠ω₀ ^(R), and the dispersion parameters on thetwo sides of OPC are defined with respect to the corresponding centerfrequencies.

To compensate the nonlinearity of transmission fibers, our method ofusing scaled translational symmetry [16, 17] requires that theconjugating fiber segments have the same sign for the loss/gaincoefficients, opposite second-order dispersions, and the same sign forthe third-order dispersions. Such conditions are naturally satisfied, atleast approximately, in conventional fiber transmission systems, where,for example, an SMF may be paired with a DCF as conjugatingcounterparts. The symmetry is in the scaled sense, because the lengthsof the fibers and the corresponding fiber parameters, including thefiber loss coefficients and dispersions, as well as the Kerr and Ramannonlinear coefficients, are all in proportion, and the proportionalratio may not be 1. The symmetry is translational, because the curves ofsignal power variation along the fiber keep the similar shape, albeitscaled, when translated from the left to the right side of OPC, asdepicted in FIG. 10, so do the curves of any above-mentioned fiberparameter if plotted against the fiber length. The fundamental discoveryis that two fiber lines translationally symmetric about the OPC are ableto cancel each other's nonlinearities up to the first-orderperturbation. To understand the principle, imagine two fiber lines withopposite nonlinear coefficients but identical linear parameters ofdispersion and loss/gain. It turns out that the nonlinear effects of thetwo are compensated up to the first-order perturbation, when they areused in cascade as shown in FIG. 11. The first fiber stretching fromz=−L to z=0 is a real, physical one with parameters α(z),{β_(k)(z)}_(k≧2), γ(z), g(z, •), so that the signal propagation in whichis governed by, $\begin{matrix}{{{\frac{\partial{A\left( {z,t} \right)}}{\partial z} + {\sum\limits_{k = 2}^{+ \infty}\quad{\frac{i^{k - 1}{\beta_{k}(z)}}{k!}\left( \frac{\partial}{\partial t} \right)^{k}{A\left( {z,t} \right)}}} + {\frac{\alpha(z)}{2}{A\left( {z,t} \right)}}} = {{i\quad{\gamma(z)}{{A\left( {z,t} \right)}}^{2}{A\left( {z,t} \right)}} + {{i\left\lbrack {{g\left( {z,t} \right)} \otimes {{A\left( {z,t} \right)}}^{2}} \right\rbrack}{A\left( {z,t} \right)}}}},} & (16)\end{matrix}$−L≦z≦0. The other is a fictitious fiber stretching from z=0 to z=L, withparameters α′(z), {β′_(k)(z)}_(k≧2), γ′(z), g′(z, •) satisfying,α′(z)=α(z−L),  (17)β′_(k)(z)=β_(k)(z−L), ∀k≧2,  (18)γ′(z)=−γ(z−L),  (19)g′(z,t)=−g(z−L,t), ∀tε(−∞,+∞),  (20)∀zε[0, L]. Note that the fictitious fiber may be unphysical because ofthe oppositely signed nonlinear coefficients γ′ and g′ [30]. The signalpropagation in this fictitious fiber obeys the following NLSE,$\begin{matrix}{{{\frac{\partial{A^{\prime}\left( {z,t} \right)}}{\partial z} + {\sum\limits_{k = 2}^{+ \infty}\quad{\frac{i^{k - 1}{\beta_{k}^{\prime}(z)}}{k!}\left( \frac{\partial}{\partial t} \right)^{k}{A^{\prime}\left( {z,t} \right)}}} + {\frac{\alpha^{\prime}(z)}{2}{A^{\prime}\left( {z,t} \right)}}} = {{i\quad{\gamma^{\prime}(z)}{{A^{\prime}\left( {z,t} \right)}}^{2}{A^{\prime}\left( {z,t} \right)}} + {{i\left\lbrack {{g^{\prime}\left( {z,t} \right)} \otimes {{A^{\prime}\left( {z,t} \right)}}^{2}} \right\rbrack}{A^{\prime}\left( {z,t} \right)}}}},} & (21)\end{matrix}$0≦z≦L. FIG. 12 shows the signal power and dispersion maps in the seriesof two fiber lines. It is obvious from equations (6-11) and (17-20) thatthe two fiber lines would induce opposite first-order nonlineardistortions to otherwise the same linear signal propagation(zeroth-order approximation), because the two linear propagators P(z₁−L,z₂−L) and P(z₁, z₂) are exactly the same, for all z₁ε[0, L] and allz₂ε[z₁, L], while the Kerr nonlinear coefficients γ(z−L) and γ′(z), aswell as the Raman coefficients g(z−L, •) and g′(z, •), are exactlyopposite-valued, for all zε[0, L]. If the overall dispersion of eachfiber line is compensated to zero and the signal loss is made up bylinear optical amplifiers, then the same perturbation argument may beapplied to the two lines in cascade to show that the fiber nonlinearityis annihilated up to the first-order perturbation. The problem is thatan optical fiber with negative nonlinear coefficients may be onlyfictitious. It does not exist naturally.

For a fictitious fiber of length L and with parameters as those inequation (21), the Kerr nonlinear coefficient γ′ is negative-valued, andthe Raman gain g is reversed, or called “negative” as well [30], in thesense that it induces optical power flow from lower to higherfrequencies, which obviously will not happen normally. Fortunately, suchfictitious fiber may be simulated by an ordinary fiber with the help ofOPC, as depicted in FIG. 13. An ordinary fiber of length L/R may befound with parameters α″, {β″_(k)}_(k≧2), γ″, g″ satisfying thefollowing rules of scaling,α″(z)=Rα′(Rz),  (22)β″_(k)(z)=(−1)^(k-1) Rβ′ _(k)(Rz)) ∀k≧2,  (23)γ″(z)=−Qγ′(Rz),  (24)g″(z,t)=−Qg′(Rz,t), ∀tε(−∞,+∞),  (25)∀zε[0, L/R], where R>0, Q>0 are scaling factors. In this ordinary fiber,the NLSE of signal propagation is, $\begin{matrix}{{{\frac{\partial{A^{''}\left( {z,t} \right)}}{\partial z} + {\sum\limits_{k = 2}^{+ \infty}\quad{\frac{i^{k - 1}{\beta_{k}^{''}(z)}}{k!}\left( \frac{\partial}{\partial t} \right)^{k}{A^{''}\left( {z,t} \right)}}} + {\frac{\alpha^{''}(z)}{2}{A^{''}\left( {z,t} \right)}}} = {{i\quad{\gamma^{''}(z)}{{A^{''}\left( {z,t} \right)}}^{2}{A^{''}\left( {z,t} \right)}} + {{i\left\lbrack {{g^{''}\left( {z,t} \right)} \otimes {{A^{''}\left( {z,t} \right)}}^{2}} \right\rbrack}{A^{''}\left( {z,t} \right)}}}},} & (26)\end{matrix}$∀zε[0, L/R]. That is, with the substitution of parameters according toequations (22-25), $\begin{matrix}{{{\frac{\partial{A^{''}\left( {z,t} \right)}}{R{\partial z}} + {\sum\limits_{k = 2}^{+ \infty}\quad{\frac{\left( {- i} \right)^{k - 1}{\beta_{k}^{\prime}({Rz})}}{k!}\left( \frac{\partial}{\partial t} \right)^{k}{A^{''}\left( {z,t} \right)}}} + {\frac{\alpha^{\prime}({Rz})}{2}{A^{''}\left( {z,t} \right)}}} = {{{- {iQR}^{- 1}}{\gamma^{\prime}({Rz})}{{A^{''}\left( {z,t} \right)}}^{2}{A^{''}\left( {z,t} \right)}} - {{{iQR}^{- 1}\left\lbrack {{g^{\prime}\left( {{Rz},t} \right)} \otimes {{A^{''}\left( {z,t} \right)}}^{2}} \right\rbrack}{A^{''}\left( {z,t} \right)}}}},} & (27)\end{matrix}$∀zε[0, L/R]. After a further substitution,A″(z,t)=e ^(iθ)(R/Q)^(1/2) [A′(Rz,t)]*,  (28)with θεR being an arbitrary phase, then a change of variable Rz→z, andfinally taking the complex conjugate of the whole equation, equation(27) becomes mathematically identical to equation (21). Equation (28) isactually the scaling rule for the signal amplitudes. The physicalimplication is that, if a signal A′(0, t) is injected into thefictitious fiber and the complex conjugate signale^(iθ)(R/Q)^(1/2)[A′(0, t)]* is fed to the ordinary fiber, then thesignal at any point zε[0, L/R] in the ordinary fiber ise^(iθ)(R/Q)^(1/2)[A′(Rz, t)]*, which is e^(iθ)(R/Q)^(1/2) times thecomplex conjugate of the signal at the scaled position Rz in thefictitious fiber. In particular, the output signals are A′(L, t) ande^(iθ)(R/Q)^(1/2)[A′(L, t)]* from the fictitious and the ordinary fibersrespectively. Except for scaling the signal power by a factor R/Q, theordinary fiber with two phase conjugators installed at its two endsperforms exactly the same dispersive and nonlinear signal transformationas the fictitious fiber. Such equivalence is illustrated in FIG. 13. Inpractice, the phase conjugator at the output end of the ordinary fibermay be omitted, as most applications would not differentiate between asignal and its complex conjugate. Replacing the fictitious fiber withnegative nonlinearities in FIG. 11 by such scaled ordinary fiber withOPC attached at the input end, one arrives at anonlinearity-compensating setup using all physical components/devices:an optical phase conjugator in the middle, an ordinary fiber on the leftside stretching from z=−L to z=0 with parameters α(z), {β_(k)(z)}_(k≧2),γ(z), g(z, •), and an ordinary fiber on the right side stretching fromz=0 to z=L/R with parameters α″(z), {β″_(k)(z)}_(k≧2), γ″(z), g″(z, •).It follows from equations (17-20) and (22-25) that the parameters of thetwo fibers are related as,α″(z)=Rα(Rz−L),  (29)β″_(k)(z)=(−1)^(k-1) Rβ _(k)(Rz−L), ∀k≧2,  (30)γ″(z)=Qγ(Rz−L),  (31)g″ (z,t)=Qg(Rz−L,t), ∀tε(−∞,+∞),  (32)∀zε[0, L/R]. Equations (29-32) are called the scaling rules for twofibers to form a translational symmetry in the scaled sense about anoptical phase conjugator [16, 17]. In order for two fiber lines inscaled translational symmetry to compensate their nonlinearities up tothe first-order perturbation, it is further required that the inputsignals A(−L, t) and A″(0, t) at the beginning of the two fiber linessatisfy the following,A″(0,t)=e ^(iθ)(R/Q)^(1/2) [A(−L, t)]*,  (33)where θεR is an arbitrary phase. Equation (33) may be regarded as thescaling rule for the input signals to the fibers.

The analysis has convinced us that OPC may help to compensate fibernonlinearities between two transmission lines that are in scaledtranslational symmetry. It should be emphasized that the fiber line oneach side of OPC does not necessarily consist of only one fiber span,and the signal intensity does not have to evolve monotonically either.The simple setup used above should only be regarded as an example forillustration and mathematical convenience. The proposed method ofnonlinear compensation works fine when each side of the OPC consists ofmultiple fiber spans with optical amplifiers in between repeating thesignal power. In which case, each fiber on one side should be pairedwith a scaled translationally symmetric counterpart on the other side,with the parameters and input signals of the fiber pair satisfying thesimilar scaling rules as in equations (29-33). Because most fibers donot start or end at z=0 in a transmission line consisting of many spans,the scaling rules for them would be similar to equations (29-33) butwith the position coordinates suitably adjusted. Furthermore, thescaling ratios may vary from one pair of fibers to another. Put inwords, the scaling rules for scaled translational symmetries betweenpairs of fiber segments require that each pair of fiber segments havethe same sign for the loss/gain coefficients, opposite second-orderdispersions, the same sign for the third-order dispersions, and the samepositive-valued nonlinear coefficients [30]. Moreover, a fiber may haveits linear parameters scaled by a common factor and its nonlinearcoefficients scaled by another factor, then the length of the fiber maybe scaled inversely proportional to the linear parameters, and thesignal power may be adjusted accordingly to yield the same strength ofnonlinear interactions. The conditions of “the same sign for losscoefficients and opposite signs for the second-order dispersions” arenaturally satisfied by the transmission fibers and DCFs used inconventional transmission systems. Another fact, simple but cruciallyimportant for practical applications, is that nonlinear effects aresignificant only in portions of fibers where the signal power is high.When scaling fiber parameters and signal amplitudes to have two fiberspans inducing the same or compensating nonlinear effects, it is onlynecessary to make sure that the scaling rules of equations (29-32) and(33) are fulfilled in portions of fibers experiencing high levels ofsignal power. Elsewhere, the scaling rules may be loosened or neglectedwhen the signal power is low. Relaxing the scaling rules in portions offibers carrying low-power signals makes it much easier to find practicaland commercially available fibers with suitable dispersioncharacteristics to manage the accumulated dispersions of individualspans.

With such scaling of nonlinearities [16, 17], both the Kerr and Ramannonlinearities may be suppressed simultaneously if a proportionalrelation is maintained between the γ and g parameters as in the scalingrules of equations (31) and (32). When equations (31) and (32) can notbe fulfilled simultaneously, either the Kerr or the Raman nonlinearitymay be primarily targeted for compensation depending upon the actualapplication. For a translational symmetry between two fibers withopposite dispersions, the scaling rule of equation (29) requires thesame sign for the loss/gain coefficients of the two fibers, which is aconvenient condition to meet by the natural fiber losses. This is incontrast to the mirror symmetry between two fiber segments that requiresan amplifying segment correspond to a lossy one and vice versa. Fibersmay be designed and fabricated with the requirements of scaled symmetrytaken into consideration. For a given piece of fiber, the losscoefficient may need to be intentionally increased to meet the scalingrule. The extra loss may be induced by, for example, doping the fiberpreform with erbium, or transition metals, or other impurities [32, 33],macro-bending [24] the fiber or writing long-period Bragg gratings intothe fiber for scattering losses. Macro-bending may be built in a lumpedfiber module having the fiber coiled tightly with a suitable radius.Also discrete fiber coils or Bragg gratings for light attenuation may beimplemented periodically along the length of a fiber to approximate acontinuous uniform loss coefficient. More sophisticatedly, Raman pumpsmay be employed to induce gain or loss to the optical signals dependingupon the pump frequencies being higher or lower than the signal band, soto alter the effective gain/loss coefficient of the fiber. Even thoughit is rather difficult to change the dispersion of a given fiber, OPC iscapable of shifting the center frequency of the signal band, which canfine-tune the effective dispersion at the center of the signal band, solong as the fiber has a non-zero dispersion slope. Even though mostfibers are made of similar materials with similar nonlinearsusceptibilities, their guided-wave nonlinear coefficients measured inW⁻¹km⁻¹ could be quite different due to the wide variation of modalsizes. Unless the ratio of nonlinear coefficients matches the ratio ofdispersions, the signal powers in two conjugate fibers may have todiffer by several dB as required by the scaling rule of equation (33)for scaled translational symmetry. Alternatively, by taking advantage ofthe additivity of the first-order nonlinear perturbations, it ispossible to adjust the signal powers in different fiber spans onlyslightly, such that one span of a highly-nonlinear type may compensateseveral fiber spans of another type with weaker nonlinearity. Thismethod may be called “one-for-many” (in terms of fiber spans)nonlinearity compensation.

It should be noted that the suitability of compensating nonlinearitiesamong lossy fibers does not exclude the method of translational symmetryfrom applying to systems with amplifying fibers due to Raman pumping[18, 20, 21, 22] or rare-earth-element doping [19]. The scaledtranslationally symmetric method applies to these systems equally well,provided that an amplifying fiber is brought into translational symmetrywith respect to another fiber with gain. In fact, if two fibers withtheir intrinsic loss coefficients satisfying the scaling rule ofequation (29), then the power of the Raman pumps (forward or backward)to them may be adjusted properly to yield effective gain/losscoefficients satisfying the same rule of equation (29). In particular,Raman pumped DCFs [34, 35, 36] may be conveniently tuned translationallysymmetric to a Raman pumped transmission fiber. For systems sufferingconsiderable nonlinear penalties originated from long EDFAs [37], thepenalties may be largely suppressed by arranging the amplifiers intoconjugate pairs with scaled translational symmetry about the OPC. Thenonlinear and gain coefficients as well as the signal amplitudes in theamplifying fibers should obey the scaling rules. If the dispersions ofthe amplifying fibers are not negligible, they should be designed tosatisfy the scaling rules as well. Finally, it is also necessary to notethe limitation of nonlinearity compensation using scaled translationalsymmetry. That is, the method can only compensate the first-ordernonlinear interactions among the optical signals. The higher-ordernonlinear products are not compensated, nor is the nonlinear mixingbetween transmitted signals and amplifier noise. The accumulation ofuncompensated higher-order nonlinearities and nonlinear signal-noisemixing would eventually upper-bound the amount of signal power permittedin the transmission fibers, so to limit the obtainable signal-to-noiseratio, and ultimately limit the product of data capacity andtransmission distance.

Optimal Setups of Fiber-Optic Transmission Lines

Having established the basic principles of dispersion equalization andnonlinearity compensation using OPC and scaled translational symmetry,we shall now discuss practical designs of fiber systems forlong-distance transmissions, with realistic (commercially available)DCFs and transmission fibers that are optimally configured according tothe basic principles of simultaneous compensation of dispersion andnonlinearity. A long-distance transmission line may consist of manyfiber spans, each of which may have transmission anddispersion-compensating fibers. Two fibers with opposite (second-order)dispersions may be tuned translationally symmetric to each other about aphase conjugator. For optimal nonlinearity compensation, the fiberparameters and the signal amplitudes should be adjusted to meet theconditions of translational symmetry, often approximately, not exactly,because of the dispersion slopes [17]. In particular, if one fiber spanhas a positive-dispersion (+D) fiber followed by a negative-dispersion(−D) fiber, then the counterpart span has to place the −D fiber beforethe +D fiber, in order to achieve an approximate translational symmetrybetween the two fiber spans. Even though the +D and −D fibers areusually made of similar materials with similar nonlinearsusceptibilities, their guided-wave nonlinear coefficients measured inW⁻¹km⁻¹ could be quite different due to the wide variation of modalsizes. Unless the ratio of nonlinear coefficients matches the ratio ofdispersions, the signal powers in two conjugate fibers may have todiffer by several dB as required by the scaling rule of equation (33)for scaled translational symmetry.

Should it be desired to have a similar level of signal powers into thenonlinearity-compensating +D and −D fibers, one may adjust the signalpowers in the +D and −D fibers only slightly, such that one span of atype with stronger nonlinearity generates an amount of nonlinearity thatis equivalent to an integral multiple of the amount of nonlinearitygenerated in one span of another type with weaker nonlinearity. If eachspan with weaker nonlinearity is dispersion-compensated to haveapproximately zero accumulated dispersion, then each of several suchspans in cascade may indeed induce approximately the same nonlinearresponse. And for a reasonably small number of such cascaded spans withweaker nonlinearity, the overall nonlinear response may still be wellapproximated by a combined first-order perturbation, which is just thesum of the first-order perturbations of individual spans. Then one maytake advantage of the additivity of the first-order perturbations andhave one span of the type with stronger nonlinearity to compensateseveral spans of the other type with weaker nonlinearity. This methodmay be called “one-for-many” (in terms of fiber spans) nonlinearitycompensation. More generally, it is possible to have several spans ofthe type with weaker nonlinearity generating different amounts ofnonlinearity, still their combined nonlinearity may be compensated byone span of the type with stronger nonlinearity, so long as allnonlinearities remain perturbative and the first-order perturbation ofthe span with stronger nonlinearity is equivalent to the sum of thefirst-order perturbations of the spans with weaker nonlinearity.

When two fiber spans are translationally symmetric about an opticalphase conjugator, one span is called the translational conjugate to theother about the OPC. As argued above, OPC is able to equalize dispersionterms of even orders. So the two parts of a transmission line with OPCin the middle should have the same amount of b₂ and b₄ but exactlyopposite b₃, or both have b₃=0, where the b-parameters are defined as inequation (13). In a more restrictive implementation, each fiber spanconsists of +D and −D fibers with the total dispersion slope compensatedto zero. The +D and −D fibers in each span need not to match theirdispersions and slopes simultaneously. It is sufficient to fullycompensate b₃, while leaving residual even-order terms b₂ and b₄. Twoconjugate spans would be configured as +D followed by −D fibers and −Dfollowed by +D fibers respectively. The two conjugate spans may not beexactly the same in length, and they may have different integrateddispersion terms of the even orders. The two types of fiber spans may bemixed and alternated on each side of the OPC, so that the two sides havethe same total b₂ and b₄. Transmission lines with such dispersion mapare convenient to plan and manage. However, it is worth noting that thepresent method of simultaneous compensation of dispersion andnonlinearity applies to other dispersion maps as well, where the periodof dispersion compensation may be either shorter [38] or longer [39]than the amplifier spacing, or the fiber spans may vary widely in lengthand configuration. Regardless of the dispersion map, wide-banddispersion compensation could be achieved in a transmission line withmiddle-span OPC so long as the dispersion terms of the two sides of OPCsatisfy equation (14), and pairs of conjugate fiber spans could havetheir nonlinearities cancelled up to the first-order perturbation aslong as the scaling rules of equations (29-32) and (33) are wellobserved.

As a result of power loss, the nonlinear response of a long piece offiber becomes insensitive to the actual fiber length so long as it farexceeds the effective length [2] defined as L_(eff)=1/α, where α is theloss coefficient in units of km⁻¹ (instead of dB/km). So fiber spansconsisting of the same types of fibers but with different lengths couldcontribute the same amount of nonlinearity if the input powers are thesame. That all fiber spans contribute the same nonlinearity makes itpossible for various spans with different lengths to compensate eachother's nonlinear effects. It is straightforward to extend the sameargument to fiber spans with scaled parameters and signal powers. Theconclusion is that scaled fiber spans could induce approximately thesame amount of nonlinear distortion to optical signals, which isinsensitive to the varying span lengths, provided that the length ofeach fiber span is much longer than its own effective length defined bythe inverse of the loss coefficient. The main advantage is that thefiber spans may be arbitrarily paired for nonlinearity compensationregardless of their actual lengths. This is good news to terrestrial andfestoon systems, where the span-distance between repeaters may varyaccording to the geographical conditions. When the dispersion of eachfiber span is not fully compensated, it is desirable to fine-tune(slightly elongate or shorten) the lengths of transmission fibers orDCFs such that all spans have the same amount of residual dispersion. Asa consequence, fiber spans of different lengths and possibly consistingof different types of fibers become truly equivalent in twoall-important aspects of signal propagation: nonlinearity andaccumulated dispersion. Certainly, if the above-mentioned method of“one-for-many” nonlinearity compensation is employed, the residualdispersion of the highly nonlinear span should also be multiplied by thesame integer factor. Last but not least, when scaling fiber parametersand signal amplitudes to have two fiber spans inducing the same orcompensating nonlinear effects, it is only necessary to make sure thatthe scaling rules of equations (29-32) and (33) are fulfilled inportions of fibers experiencing high levels of signal power. Elsewhere,the scaling rules may be loosened or neglected when the signal power islow.

Despite the translational symmetry between the constituent fibers of twoconjugate spans, it is advantageous to order many conjugate spans in amirror-symmetric manner about the OPC, especially when all the spans arenot identical. The local nonlinearity within each span is usually weaksuch that the nonlinear perturbations of higher orders than the firstmay be neglected, even though a strong nonlinearity may be accumulatedthrough many fiber spans. Within the applicability of first-orderperturbation for approximating the nonlinearity of each fiber span, itmay be argued using mathematical induction that the nonlinearity ofmultiple spans in cascade is also compensated up to the first-orderperturbation, because of the mirror-symmetric arrangement of fiber spansabout the OPC. The spans may be labelled from left to right by −N, . . ., −2, −1, 1, 2, . . . , N, with OPC located between span −1 and span 1.And one may denote by z₀ and z′₀ the beginning and end positions of thesection of OPC, while labelling the beginning and end points of span nby z_(n) and z′_(n) where z′_(n)=z_(n+1), ∀nε[−N, N−1]. There may bethree variations for a mirror-symmetric configuration of pairs of fiberspans in scaled translational symmetry, depending upon whether thedispersion in each span is compensated to zero, and if not, how thedispersion is managed. In the first case, all spans are compensated tozero dispersion, as shown in FIG. 14 for the case of N=3. It is requiredthat, ∀nε[1, N], spans −n and n should be conjugate, that istranslationally symmetric, to each other. The first-order nonlinearperturbations of spans 1 and −1 cancel each other due to thetranslational symmetry and the OPC, so the optical path from z⁻¹ to z′₁is equivalent to an ideal linear transmission line with OPC in themiddle, if higher-order nonlinear perturbations are neglected. Itfollows that the signal input to span 2 at z₂ is approximately thecomplex conjugate of that input to span −2 at z⁻², apart from thenonlinear perturbation due to span −2. So the translational symmetrybetween spans 2 and −2 about the OPC annihilates their nonlinearities upto the first-order perturbation. Using mathematical induction, assumingthat the optical path from z_(−n) to z′_(n), 1<n<N, is equivalent to anideal linear transmission line with OPC in the middle, then spans n+1and −n−1 see input signals at z_(n+1) and z_(−n−1) that areapproximately complex conjugate to each other, so their first-ordernonlinear effects cancel each other out due to the translationalsymmetry and OPC. The optical path from z_(−n−1) to z′_(n+1) islinearized and equivalent to an ideal linear transmission line with OPCin the middle. This inductive argument applies as long as theaccumulation of nonlinear perturbations of higher-orders than the firstis still negligible and the nonlinear mixing of amplifier noise intosignal hasn't grown significantly.

In the second case, the fiber spans may have non-zero residualdispersion, as shown in FIG. 15 for the case of N=3. It is requiredthat, ∀nε[1, N], spans −n and n should be in a translational symmetryapproximately, while the residual dispersion of span n−1 should beapproximately the same as span −n, ∀nε[2, N]. Pre- and post-dispersioncompensators are employed to equalize the residual dispersion. Thepre-dispersion may set the total dispersion to zero immediately beforeOPC, and a dispersion conditioner at the site of OPC ensures that thesignal input to span 1 is approximately the complex conjugate of thatinput to span −1, apart from the nonlinear perturbation due to span −1.FIG. 15 shows a dispersion conditioner placed immediately after OPC,with the amount of dispersion equal to the residual dispersion in span−1. The three thicker line segments in the dispersion map represent theeffects of the pre- and post-dispersion compensators as well as thedispersion conditioner. So the transmission line has been designed suchthat the accumulated dispersions from z_(−n) to z_(n), nε[1, N], arefully compensated by virtue of OPC, and for each nε[1, N], the fiberspan from z_(−n) to z′_(−n) is translationally symmetric to the fiberspan from z_(n) to z′_(n), namely, the parameters of the two fiber spanssatisfy the scaling rules of equations (29-32), at least approximately.Leaving aside the fiber nonlinearity, such dispersion map ensures thatthe optical signals at z_(−n) and z_(n) are complex conjugate to eachother, then the signal amplitudes may be properly scaled such thatequation (33) is also satisfied. As a result, all conditions arefulfilled for the fiber spans from z_(−n) to z′_(−n) and from z_(n) toz′_(n) to compensate their fiber nonlinearities up to the first-orderperturbation, for each nε[1, N]. The first-order nonlinear perturbationsof spans 1 and −1 cancel each other due to the translational symmetryand OPC, so the optical path from z⁻¹ to z′₁ is equivalent to an ideallinear transmission line with OPC in the middle and some accumulateddispersion at z′₁ due to span 1. Since this amount of dispersion isequal to that of span −2, the signal input to span 2 at z₂ isapproximately the complex conjugate of that input to span −2 at z⁻²,apart from the nonlinear perturbation due to span −2. So thetranslational symmetry between spans 2 and −2 about the OPC annihilatestheir nonlinearities up to the first-order perturbation. Usingmathematical induction, assuming that the optical path from z_(−n) toz′_(n), 1<n<N, is equivalent to an ideal linear transmission line withOPC in the middle and accumulated dispersion at the right end due tospan n, which is the same amount of residual dispersion as of span −n−1,then spans n+1 and −n−1 see input signals at z_(n+1) and z_(−n−1) thatare approximately complex conjugate to each other, so their first-ordernonlinear effects cancel each other out due to the translationalsymmetry and OPC. The optical path from z_(−n−1) to z′_(n+1) islinearized and equivalent to an ideal linear transmission line with OPCin the middle and the dispersion of span n+1 at the right end. In thethird case, the fiber spans still have non-zero residual dispersion, butthere is no dispersion conditioner placed immediately before or afterOPC to compensate the residual dispersion of span −1. Instead, span 1may play the role of the dispersion conditioner, and ∀nε[1, N], spans nand −n need to have the same amount of residual dispersion, while spansn and −n+1, ∀nε[2, N], should be in a scaled translational symmetryapproximately to have their nonlinearities compensated up to thefirst-order perturbation. This is in contrast to the requirement of thesecond case. The configuration is shown in FIG. 16 for the case of N=3,where the two thicker line segments in the dispersion map represent theeffects of the pre- and post-dispersion compensators. It may be shownusing the same inductive argument that the transmission line is largelylinearized, except that the nonlinear effects of spans 1 and −N, if any,are left uncompensated.

DCFs are widely used in modern fiber-optic transmission systems. A DCFmay be coiled into a compact module at the amplifier site, or cabled aspart of the transmission line. The performance of both types of DCFs hasbeen greatly improved recently. There are now low-loss DCFs capable of(approximately) slope-matched dispersion compensation for varioustransmission fibers with different ratios of dispersion todispersion-slope [3, 4], although there are always residual second-orderand fourth-order dispersions after the slope is equalized [5, 6, 7]. ForSMFs, namely standard single-mode fibers, the ratio of dispersion (D≈16ps/nm/km @1550 nm) to dispersion slope (S≈0.055 ps/nm²/km @1550 nm) islarge, so that the relative change of dispersion is small across thesignal band (≈40 nm in the C-band). The so-called reverse dispersionfibers (RDFs) are designed to compensate simultaneously the dispersionand dispersion slope of the SMFs. An RDF is not an ideal translationalconjugate to an SMF, because their dispersion slopes do not obey thescaling rule of equation (30). However, their dispersions satisfy thecorresponding scaling rule of equation (30) approximately, with onlysmall deviations across the entire signal band (C or L). Therefore, aspan having an SMF followed by an RDF on the left side of OPC may bebrought into a translational symmetry, approximately, to a span havingan RDF followed by an SMF on the right side of OPC, and vice versa. Thetwo types of spans may be denoted by SMF+RDF and RDF+SMF respectively.The indication is that OPC may be installed in the middle ofconventional transmission lines with no or minimal modifications toachieve simultaneous wide-band dispersion compensation and nonlinearitysuppression. The only requirements are that the signal power levelsshould be properly set in the fiber spans, and the SMFs/RDFs should besuitably arranged, to meet the scaling rules of equations (29-32) and(33) approximately for the translational symmetry between each pair ofconjugate fiber spans, and to order the conjugate pairs of spansmirror-symmetrically about the OPC. It is noted that a recent paper [40]has independently proposed the combination of slope-matching DCF and OPCto suppress simultaneously the third-order dispersion and sidebandinstability due to fiber nonlinearity. However, the work [40] waslimited to a single-channel system, considered only the suppression ofsideband instability as an intra-channel nonlinear effect, and did notrecognize the importance of scaling the nonlinearity (especially thesignal power) in different fibers. By contrast, our method applies towide-band WDM systems as well and is capable of suppressing both intra-and inter-channel nonlinear interactions, being them Kerr- orRaman-originated. Most importantly, we emphasize the importance of thescaling rules of equations (29-32) and (33) for optimal nonlinearitycompensation.

There have been RDFs [5, 7] with loss and dispersion coefficientscomparable to those of SMFs, namely, α_(RDF)≈α_(SMF)≈0.2 dB/km,D_(RDF)≈−D_(SMF)≈−16 ps/nm/km at about 1550 nm. However, the effectivemodal area of RDFs is usually small, for example, about 30 μm², which isfar less than the about 80 μm² effective modal area of SMFs. Because thefiber nonlinear coefficients are inversely proportional to the effectivemodal area, the example RDF has Kerr and Raman nonlinear coefficientsthat are approximately 80/30≈2.7 times of those of SMFs, namely,γ_(RDF)≈2.7γ_(SMF), g_(RDF)(•)≈2.7 g_(SMF)(•). If the same level ofsignal power should be injected into the SMF+RDF and RDF+SMF spans, thenthe amount of nonlinearity generated by an RDF+SMF span would be about2.7 times of that generated by an SMF+RDF span. Nevertheless, one mayraise the input power to the RDF+SMF spans (relative to the input powerto the SMF+RDF spans) by only 0.3/2.7≈10% to have one RDF+SMF spangenerates the equivalent amount of nonlinearity of, hence compensate thenonlinear effects of, three SMF+RDF spans. Alternatively, one may lowerthe input power to the RDF+SMF spans (relative to the input power to theSMF+RDF spans) by just 0.7/2.7≈26% to have one RDF+SMF span generatesthe equivalent amount of nonlinearity of, hence compensate the nonlineareffects of, two SMF+RDF spans. These are practical examples of theabove-mentioned method of “one-for-many” nonlinear compensations.

Several non-zero dispersion-shifted fibers (NZDSFs) have also beendeveloped for long-distance high-capacity transmissions. These fibershave reduced but non-zero dispersions across the operating band (C orL). Depending upon the sign of the dispersion (D in units of ps/nm/km),there are positive NZDSFs (+NZDSFs) and negative NZDSFs (−NZDSFs), buttheir dispersion-slopes are always positive. It becomes possible tobring a +NZDSF and a −NZDSF into a nearly perfect translational symmetry[41], because their oppositely signed dispersions and positively signeddispersion-slopes meet the exact requirements of the scaling rules ofequation (30). The dispersion-slope of the NZDSFs may be compensated bynegative-slope DCFs. The DCFs do not have to (could not indeed)compensate the dispersion and dispersion-slope simultaneously for boththe positive and negative NZDSFs. It is sufficient to equalize theaccumulated dispersion-slope to zero on each side of the OPC, then thetwo sides may cancel their accumulated non-zero dispersions of thesecond and the fourth orders through OPC. To form anonlinearity-compensating translational symmetry between a +NZDSF spanand a −NZDSF span, the accumulated dispersion should be properly managedto ensure that the input signals to the +NZDSF and −NZDSF fibers arecomplex conjugate to each other, which is a necessary condition fornonlinearity cancellation. As long as these requirements are satisfied,there is really no limit as to how much residual (second-order)dispersion may be accumulated in each fiber span as well as on each sideof the OPC. It may be difficult to find a fiber translationallysymmetric to the slope-compensating DCF, because of its high negativedispersion-slope. However, we note that it is only necessary to have ascaled translational symmetry formed between portions of fibers carryinghigh signal power, elsewhere, such as in the slope-compensating DCFs,the scaling rules may be neglected when the signal power is low and thenonlinearity is insignificant. If the slope-compensating DCFs arecabled, they may be placed near the end of fiber spans where the signalpower is low. Or if the DCFs are coiled into modules and co-located withthe amplifiers, the signal power inside may be controlled at a low levelto avoid nonlinearity. To minimize the noise-figure penalty in such DCFmodules, the DCF may be distributively Raman pumped [18, 34, 35], orearth-element doped and distributively pumped [19], or divided intomultiple segments and power-repeated by a multi-stage EDFA. Theconclusion is that the method of OPC-based simultaneous compensation ofdispersion and nonlinearity is perfectly suitable for transmissionsystems employing NZDSFs, and highly effective nonlinearity suppressionmay be expected in such systems due to the nearly perfect translationalsymmetry between the +NZDSFs and −NZDSFs. Finally, in the limit ofvanishing (second-order) dispersion at the center of the signal band,the +NZDSF and −NZDSF converge to the same dispersion-shifted fiber(DSF), which is translationally symmetric to itself. Two identical DSFspans on the two sides of OPC are in perfect translational symmetry tocancel their nonlinearity up to the first-order perturbation. Again thedispersion-slope may be equalized by a DCF with negativedispersion-slope, and the residual second-order dispersion may bearbitrarily valued. Suppressing fiber nonlinearity happens to be highlydesired in DSF-based transmission lines, as DSFs are arguably the mostsusceptible to nonlinear impairments [2].

Simulation Results and Discussions

To verify the proposed method of simultaneous compensation of dispersionand nonlinearity, we have carried out a series of numerical simulationsusing a commercial transmission simulator (VPItransmissionMaker™,Virtual Photonics Inc.). Reference [17] has presented an example of SMFsand DCF modules with nearly perfect match of dispersion and slope. Herewe consider a practical setup of SMFs and cabled DCFs with residualdispersion, as shown in FIG. 17. One type of span consists of 50 km SMFfollowed by 50 km DCF. The SMF has loss coefficient α=0.2 dB/km,effective mode area A_(eff)=80 μm², and dispersion parameters β₂=−20.5ps²/km, β₃=0.12 ps³/km at 193.1 THz. The corresponding dispersion D=16ps/nm/km and slope S=0.055 ps/nm²/km. The DCF mimics a commercial RDFproduct [7], namely a reverse dispersion fiber, with parameters (α′,A′_(eff), β′₂, β′₃)=(0.2, 30, 18, −0.12), in the same units as for theSMF. The Kerr nonlinear index of silica n₂=2.6×10⁻²⁰ m²/W. PracticalDCFs often have a loss coefficient that is slightly higher than theSMFs, so the optimal design of the DCFs would have a dispersion|D_(DCF)| slightly higher than |D_(SMF)| proportionally according to thescaling rules of equations (29) and (30). The conjugate span has 40 kmDCF followed by SMF of the same length. Due to the smaller modal area, alower power is injected into the DCF to generate the compensatingnonlinearity, in accordance with the scaling rule for signal amplitudesin equation (33). The shortened span length is to balance the noisefigure between the two types of spans. The two span types are alsointermixed on each side of the OPC to balance the residual dispersions.Alternatively, all fiber spans may be the same in length, but the signalpower injected to the DCF+SMF spans should be ⅜ of that injected to theSMF+DCF spans, and the DCF+SMF spans would add more noise to the opticalsignal than the SMF+DCF spans. It is noted that the scaling rules arenot obeyed at all in the second part of each span, that is, in the DCFsof SMF+DCF spans and in the SMFs of DCF+SMF spans. Fortunately, thesecond part of each span experiences low signal power, in which thenonlinear effect is negligible. Back to the setup of FIG. 17, where allEDFAs have the same noise figure of 5 dB, each fiber loop recirculatesfive times, that gives 1000 km worth of fiber transmission on each sideof the OPC. The inputs are four 40 Gb/s WDM channels, return-to-zero(RZ) modulated with peak power 20 mW, channel spacing 200 GHz. Each RZpulse generator consists of a continuous-wave laser followed by azero-chirp modulator, which is over-driven to produce a pulse train withthe amplitude proportional to cos (π/2sin πΩt), where Ω is the bit rate.Therefore the duty cycle of the pulses is 33%, if defined as the ratioof pulse full-width-half-maximum to the time interval between adjacentbits. The optical multiplexer and demultiplexer consist of Besselfilters of the 7th order with 3 dB bandwidth 80 GHz. The input data aresimulated by pseudo random binary sequences of order 7, and thesimulation time window covers 256 bits. The photo-detector is withresponsivity 1.0 A/W and thermal noise 10.0 pA/√{square root over (Hz)}.The electrical filter is 3rd order Bessel with 3 dB bandwidth 28 GHz.FIG. 18 shows the received eye diagrams of the second channel out of thedemultiplexer (DEMUX). The top-right diagram shows the effect ofnonlinearity compensation. For comparison, the result of a fictitioustransmission where no fiber has any nonlinear effect is shown on thetop-left of FIG. 18. To confirm that the suppression of nonlinearity isindeed due to the translational symmetry of conjugate spans about theOPC, the two diagrams at the bottom of FIG. 18 show simulation resultsof altered configurations: one setup has the same length of 50+50 km forand the same input power level to both the SMF+DCF and the DCF+SMFspans, the other has on both sides of OPC identical 100-km SMF+DCF spanscarrying the same signal power. Both altered setups suffer from severenonlinear impairments.

For an example of “one-for-many” nonlinearity compensation, we havesimulated a transmission system using SMF+RDF and RDF+SMF spans, asshown in FIG. 19. The system has an optical phase conjugator in themiddle, and on each side of OPC there is a loop recirculating fourtimes. Each loop consists of three SMF+RDF spans each consisting of 40km SMF+40 km RDF+16 dB EDFA, and one RDF+SMF span consisting of 40 kmRDF+40 km SMF+16 dB EDFA. The SMF has loss α=0.2 dB/km, dispersion D=16ps/nm/km, dispersion-slope S=0.055 ps/nm²/km, effective modal areaA_(eff)=80 μm², and the RDF has α′=0.2 dB/km, D′=−16 ps/nm/km, S′=−0.055ps/nm²/km, A′_(eff)=30 μm², the EDFA has noise FIG. 4 dB. The inputs arefour 40 Gb/s channels, RZ modulated with peak power 10 mW and duty cycle33%. The channel spacing is 200 GHz. The optical MUX and DEMUX consistof Bessel filters of the 7th order with 3 dB bandwidth 100 GHz. Thesystem is configured such that each RDF+SMF span on the left sidecorresponds to and compensates the nonlinear effects of three SMF+RDFspans on the right side, and each RDF+SMF span on the right sidecorresponds to and compensates the nonlinear effects of three SMF+RDFspans on the left side. We have tried both a case with all spans beinginjected exactly the same amount of signal power and a case with theRDF+SMF spans being fed with 10% more power comparing to the SMF+RDFspans. No observable difference is found in the transmissionperformance, which indicates robustness of the system design againstreasonable parameter deviations. FIG. 20 shows a typical eye diagram ofthe received optical signals at the end of transmission, whichdemonstrates excellent signal quality after 2560 km transmissions. Wehave also simulated two comparative systems to see how effective is themethod of “on-for-many” nonlinearity compensation with scaledtranslational symmetry, one of which as shown in FIG. 21 has allidentical SMF+RDF spans on both sides of OPC, the other of which asshown in FIG. 22 has no OPC in the middle. Everything else remains thesame. Lacking a scaled translational symmetry, both comparative systemsare seriously impaired by fiber nonlinearities, as shown by the typicaleye diagrams of received optical signals in FIG. 23.

For an example system using NZDSFs, we simulated a transmission lineconsisting of twenty 100-km fiber spans with OPC in the middle, as shownin FIG. 24, where each side of the OPC has a fiber loop circulated fivetimes. In each circulation, the optical signals go through 100 km −NZDSFtransmission followed by a two-stage EDFA with 10 km DCF in the middle,then 100 km +NZDSF transmission followed by the same two-stage EDFA andDCF. The +NZDSF has loss coefficient α=0.2 dB/km, dispersion D=+4ps/nm/km and slope S=0.11 ps/nm²/km at 193.1 THz. The effective modearea is A_(eff)=70 μm². The −NZDSF differs only by D=−4 ps/nm/km. TheKerr nonlinear index of silica n₂=2.6×10⁻²⁰ m²/W. The two-stage EDFA has11+15=26 dB gain in total to repeat the signal power. The noise figureof each stage is 5 dB. The DCF has α=0.6 dB/km, D=−40 ps/nm/km, S=−1.1ps/nm²/km, A_(eff)=25 μm², but nonlinearity neglected. The transmittingand receiving ends are the same as in the above SMF/DCF transmission.Input to the system are the same four-channel WDM signals, and the peakpower of the 40 Gb/s RZ pulses is also the same 20 mW. With theirnonlinear effects neglected, the DCFs do not participate directly innonlinearity compensation. Nevertheless, their compensation of thedispersion-slope of the NZDSFs enables the OPC to effectively compensatethe dispersion over a wide frequency band, and helps to condition theoptical signals such that the inputs to two conjugate NZDSFs aremutually complex conjugate. Note that the +NZDSF and −NZDSF spans arealternated on each side of the OPC to balance the accumulated dispersionbetween the two sides. Also note that the first −NZDSF span on the rightside of OPC is designed to compensate the nonlinearity of the last+NZDSF span on the left side, and the second span on the right (+NZDSF)is to compensate the second last span (−NZDSF) on the left, so on and soforth. It is important for the +NZDSF spans to be welldispersion-compensated, so to ensure that the input signals to the twoconjugate spans of a translationally symmetric pair are complexconjugate to each other, which is a necessary condition for nonlinearitycancellation. However, there is no limit as to how much residualdispersion may be in the −NZDSF spans. Alternatively, each fiber spanmay be a concatenation of + and −NZDSFs. One type of span may have a+NZDSF followed by a −NZDSF, then the conjugate span would consist ofthe same fibers reversely ordered. Consequently, all spans may use thesame DCF for slope compensation, and all accumulate the same dispersionsof even orders. FIG. 25 shows the received eye diagrams of the secondchannel out of the DEMUX. The top row shows the results of nonlineartransmission and the comparing fictitious transmission without fibernonlinearity through the setup of FIG. 24. The effectiveness ofnonlinear compensation is remarkable. By contrast, the bottom row ofFIG. 25 shows severe degradations in the transmission performance, whenall −NZDSFs are replaced by +NZDSFs, so that the transmission lineconsists of identical +NZDSF spans with DCFs compensating both thedispersion and the dispersion-slope. The highly effective nonlinearitycompensation is expected as a result of the nearly perfect translationalsymmetry between the +NZDSF and −NZDSF spans. Furthermore, anonlinearity-suppressed transmission line should manifest behaviors of alinear system to some extent. Typical linear behaviors includescalability and cascadability. Namely, using the same fiber spans andsimply by raising the signal power, it is possible to further thetransmission distance by increasing the number of fiber spansbefore/after the OPC (scaling up), or by cascading severalOPC-compensated transmission lines all-optically (without optical toelectrical and electrical to optical signal conversions in the middle).Both the scalability and the cascadability are confirmed via numericalsimulations, as shown in FIG. 26, where one eye diagram is for a systemwith the number of spans doubled to 40 in total, and the other diagramis obtained when cascading two identical 20-span transmission lines ofFIG. 24. The eye diagrams are still of the second channel out of theDEMUX.

To test the effectiveness of nonlinear compensation for DSFs, weevaluated numerically a transmission line consisting of twenty 50-km DSFspans with OPC in the middle, as shown in FIG. 27. Each span has 50 kmDSF and at the end a two-stage EDFA with 5 km DCF in the middle. The DSFhas loss α=0.2 dB/km, D=0 ps/nm/km and S=0.08 ps/nm²/km at the centerfrequency 193.1 THz, A_(eff)=50 μm². The Kerr nonlinear index of silicais again n₂=2.6×10⁻²⁰ m²/W. The two-stage EDFA has 6+7=13 dB gain intotal to repeat the signal power, and the noise figure of each stage is5 dB. The DCF has α=0.6 dB/km, D=−100 ps/nm/km, S=−0.8 ps/nm²/km,A_(eff)=25 μm², but nonlinearity neglected. The transmitting andreceiving ends are still the same as in the above SMF/DCF transmission.However, the four channels of 40 Gb/s RZ pulses are transmitted at(−350, −150, +50, +250) GHz off the center frequency, and they arereceived at (−250, −50, +150, +350) GHz off the center frequency. Notethat the channels are assigned asymmetrically about the center frequencyto avoid phase-matched four-wave mixing (FWM) [2]. The channels may alsobe unequally spaced to further reduce the FWM penalty [42, 43]. Butassigning channels with unequal spacing increases the network complexityand may not provide sufficient suppression by itself to the FWM andother nonlinear effects. In particular, it is ineffective to suppressthe effect of cross-phase modulation (XPM). Nevertheless, whenapplicable, such legacy methods for nonlinearity suppression may becombined with our method of OPC-based nonlinearity compensation. Thelegacy methods may work to enhance the effectiveness of our method, inthe sense that they may render weaker nonlinearity in each fiber span,so that the negligence of higher-order nonlinear perturbations becomes abetter approximation. Back to the DSF-based transmission system of FIG.27, when the power of the RZ pulses is peaked at 2 mW, FIG. 28 shows thereceived eye diagrams of the second channel out of the DEMUX. Thetop-left diagram is obtained when the fiber nonlinearity is turned OFF,so the signal is only impaired by amplifier noise. The top-right is thereceived eye diagram when the fiber nonlinearity is turned ON. Theincreased penalty due to fiber nonlinearity is visible but not toolarge. The eye diagrams at the bottom of FIG. 28 are obtained when thedispersion of the DCFs changes to D=0 ps/nm/km while the slope remains,with or without OPC in the middle of the link. The good transmissionperformance shown in the bottom-left diagram verifies the insensitivityof our OPC-based method of nonlinearity compensation to the amount ofresidual dispersion in each fiber span, while the bad result on thebottom-right demonstrates the indispensability of OPC.

Compensating Intra-Channel Nonlinear Effects Without OPC

When there is no optical phase conjugator available, two fiber spans ina translational symmetry may still cancel out their intra-channelnonlinear effects to a large extent, and a proper arrangement of thepairs of translationally symmetric fiber spans could significantlyreduce intra-channel nonlinear effects in a long distance transmissionline. The intra-channel nonlinear effects, namely, nonlinearinteractions among optical pulses within the same wavelength channel,are the dominating nonlinearities in systems with high modulation speedsof 40 Gb/s and above [39], where the nonlinear interactions amongdifferent wavelength channels become less-limiting factors. As a resultof short pulse width and high data rate, optical pulses within onechannel are quickly dispersed and overlap significantly so to interactthrough the Kerr effect. In the past a few years, intra-channelnonlinearities have been extensively investigated by several researchgroups [44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52], and a method has beenidentified for suppressing the intra-channel nonlinearity-inducedjitters in pulse amplitude and timing, using lossless or Raman-pumpedtransmission lines manifesting a mirror symmetry [46, 52]. As mentionedbefore, the loss of pump power makes it difficult to maintain a constantgain in a long transmission fiber. Consequently, the significantdeviation of signal power variation from a desired mirror-symmetricprofile degrades the result of intrachannel nonlinear compensation usingmirror symmetry [53]. Nevertheless, we have found that two fiber spansin a scaled translational symmetry could cancel out their intra-channelnonlinear effects to a large extent without resorting to OPC, and asignificant reduction of intra-channel nonlinear effects may be achievedin a multi-span system with translationally symmetric spans suitablyarranged.

This time the translational symmetry requires that the correspondingfiber segments have the same sign for the loss/gain coefficients butopposite second- and higher-order dispersions, which are naturallysatisfied conditions in conventional fiber transmission systems, where,for example, a transmission fiber may be paired with a DCF as symmetriccounter-parts. The scaled translational symmetry further requires thatthe fiber parameters should be scaled in proportion and the signalamplitudes should be adjusted to satisfy, $\begin{matrix}{{\frac{\alpha(z)}{\alpha^{\prime}\left( z^{\prime} \right)} = {{- \frac{\beta_{2}(z)}{\beta_{2}^{\prime}(z)}} = {{- \frac{\beta_{3}(z)}{\beta_{3}^{\prime}(z)}} = {\frac{{\gamma(z)}{{A\left( {z,t} \right)}}^{2}}{{\gamma^{\prime}\left( z^{\prime} \right)}{{A^{\prime}\left( {z^{\prime},t} \right)}}^{2}} = {\frac{z^{\prime}}{z} = \frac{1}{R}}}}}},} & (34)\end{matrix}$∀zε[0, L] and ∀tε(−∞, +∞), where α(z), β₂(z), β₃(z), and γ(z) denote theloss coefficient, second-order dispersion, third-order dispersion, andKerr nonlinear coefficient respectively for one fiber stretching fromz=0 to z=L>0, while the primed parameters are for the other fiberstretching from z′=0 to z′=L/R, R>0 is the scaling ratio, A(z, t) andA′(z′, t) are the envelopes of optical amplitude in the two fibersegments respectively, whose initial values at z=0 and z′=0 respectivelyare required to be complex conjugate, $\begin{matrix}{{\frac{A*\left( {{z = 0},t} \right)}{A^{\prime}\left( {{z^{\prime} = 0},t} \right)} = {e^{{- i}\quad\theta}\left\lbrack \frac{\gamma^{\prime}\left( {z^{\prime} = 0} \right)}{R\quad{\gamma\left( {z = 0} \right)}} \right\rbrack}^{1/2}},{\forall{t \in \left( {{- \infty},{+ \infty}} \right)}},} & (35)\end{matrix}$where θεR is an arbitrary phase. Even though the effect of dispersionslope may be neglected within a single wavelength channel, the inclusionof the β₃-parameters in the scaling rules of equation (34) ensures thatgood dispersion and nonlinearity compensation is achieved for eachwavelength channel across a wide optical band. When a pair of such fibersegments in scaled translational symmetry are cascaded, and the signalpower levels are adjusted in accordance with equation (34), it may beanalytically proved that both the timing jitter and the amplitudefluctuation due to intra-channel nonlinear interactions amongoverlapping pulses are compensated up to the first-order perturbation offiber nonlinearity, namely, up to the linear terms of the nonlinearcoefficient. Since the dispersive and nonlinear transmission response isinvariant under the scaling of fiber parameters and signal amplitudes asin equations (34) and (35) [17], it is without loss of generality toconsider two spans that are in translational symmetry with the ratio R=1and γ(z=0)=γ′(z′=0). The cascade of such two spans would constitute atransmission line stretching from z=0 to z=2L, with the fiber parameterssatisfying, $\begin{matrix}{{\frac{\alpha(z)}{\alpha\left( {z + L} \right)} = {{- \frac{\beta_{2}(z)}{\beta_{2}\left( {z + L} \right)}} = {{- \frac{\beta_{3}(z)}{\beta_{3}\left( {z + L} \right)}} = {\frac{\gamma(z)}{\gamma\left( {z + L} \right)} = {\frac{A*\left( {0,t} \right)}{A\left( {L,t} \right)} = 1}}}}},} & (36)\end{matrix}$∀zε[0, L] and ∀tε(−∞, +∞). The translational symmetry is illustrated inFIG. 29 with plots of signal power and accumulated dispersion along thepropagation distance.

It is only necessary to consider the Kerr nonlinearity within onewavelength channel, while the Raman effect may be neglected. Theamplitude envelope of a single channel may be represented by a sum ofoptical pulses, namely, A(z, t)=Σ_(k)u_(k)(z, t), where u_(k)(z, t)denotes the pulse in the kth bit slot and centered at time t=kT, withkεZ and T>0 being the bit duration. The following NLSE describes thepropagation and nonlinear interactions among the pulses [39],$\begin{matrix}{{{\frac{\partial u_{k}}{\partial z} + {\frac{i\quad{\beta_{2}(z)}}{2}\frac{\partial^{2}u_{k}}{\partial t^{2}}} + {\frac{\alpha(z)}{2}u_{k}}} = {i\quad{\gamma(z)}{\sum\limits_{m}\quad{\sum\limits_{n}\quad{u_{m}u_{n}u_{m + n - k}^{*}}}}}},{\forall{k \in Z}},} & (37)\end{matrix}$where the right-hand side keeps only those nonlinear products thatsatisfy the phase-matching condition. The nonlinear mixing terms witheither m=k or n=k contribute to self-phase modulation and intra-channelXPM, while the rest with both m≠k and n≠k are responsible forintra-channel FWM [39]. It is assumed that all pulses are initiallychirp-free or they can be made so by a dispersion compensator, and whenchirp-free the pulses u_(k)(z=0, t), kεZ, should all be real-valued.This includes the modulation scheme of binary phase-shift keying, wherethe relative phases between adjacent pulses are either 0 or π. It isonly slightly more general to allow the pulses being modified byarithmetically progressive phase shifts φ_(k)=φ₀+kΔφ, kεZ, with φ₀,Δφε[0, 2π], because equation (37) is invariant under the multiplicationof phase factors exp(iφ_(k)) to u_(k), ∀kεZ. The linear dependence ofφ_(k) on k is in fact equivalent to a readjustment of the frequency andphase of the optical carrier. The pulses may be RZ modulated, andnon-return-to-zero (NRZ) modulated as well, for an NRZ signal train isthe same as a stream of wide RZ pulses with 100% duty cycle.

Were there no nonlinearity in the fibers, the signal propagation wouldby fully described by the dispersive transfer function, $\begin{matrix}{{{H\left( {z_{1},z_{2},\omega} \right)} = {\exp\left\lbrack {{\frac{i}{2}{b_{2}\left( {z_{1},z_{2}} \right)}\omega^{2}} - {\frac{1}{2}{\int_{z_{1}}^{z_{2}}{\alpha\text{z}\quad{\mathbb{d}z}}}}} \right\rbrack}},} & (38)\end{matrix}$with z₁, z₂ε[0, 2L] and, $\begin{matrix}{{{b_{2}\left( {z_{1},z_{2}} \right)}\overset{def}{=}{\int_{z_{1}}^{z_{2}}{{\beta_{2}(z)}\quad{\mathbb{d}z}}}},} & (39)\end{matrix}$or equivalently the corresponding impulse response, $\begin{matrix}{{{h\left( {z_{1},z_{2},t} \right)} = {\frac{1}{\sqrt{{b_{2}\left( {z_{1},z_{2}} \right)}}}{\exp\left\lbrack {{- \frac{{it}^{2}}{2\quad{b_{2}\left( {z_{1},z_{2}} \right)}}} - {\frac{1}{2}{\int_{z_{1}}^{z_{2}}{{\alpha(z)}\quad{\mathbb{d}z}}}}} \right\rbrack}}},} & (40)\end{matrix}$which is calculated from F⁻¹[H(z₁, z₂, ω)] up to a constant phasefactor. The impulse response defines a linear propagator P(z₁, z₂) as inequation (9). In reality, the signal evolution is complicated by theKerr nonlinear effects. Nevertheless, the nonlinearity within each fiberspan may be sufficiently weak to justify the application of thefirst-order perturbation theory: $\begin{matrix}{{{v_{k}\left( {z,t} \right)} = {{P\left( {0,z} \right)}{u_{k}\left( {0,t} \right)}}},} & (41) \\{{{v_{k}^{\prime}\left( {z,t} \right)} = {i{\sum\limits_{m}\quad{\sum\limits_{n}\quad{\int_{0}^{z}{{{P\left( {s,z} \right)}\left\lbrack {{\gamma(s)}{v_{m}\left( {s,t} \right)}{v_{n}\left( {s,t} \right)}{v_{m + n - k}^{*}\left( {s,t} \right)}} \right\rbrack}\quad{\mathbb{d}s}}}}}}},} & (42)\end{matrix}$∀kεZ, where u_(k)(z, t)≈v_(k)(z, t) is the zeroth-order approximationwhich neglects the fiber nonlinearity completely, whereas the result offirst-order perturbation u_(k)(z, t)≈v_(k)(z, t)+v′_(k)(z, t) accountsin addition for the nonlinear products integrated over the fiber length.For the moment, it is assumed that both fiber spans are fullydispersion- and loss-compensated to simplify the mathematics. It thenfollows that b(0, z+L)=−b(0, z), ∫₀ ^(z+L)α(s)ds=∫₀ ^(z)α(s)ds,γ(z+L)=γ(z), ∀zε[0, L], and v_(k)(L, t)=v_(k)(2L, t)=u_(k)(0, t), whichis real-valued by assumption, ∀kεZ. It further follows that h(0, z+L,t)=h*(0, z, t), hence P(0, z+L)=P*(0, z) and P(z+L, 2L)=P*(z, 2L),∀zε[0, L]. Consequently, the pulses at z and z+L are complex conjugate,namely, v_(k)(z+L, t)=v*_(k)(z, t), ∀kεZ, ∀zε[0, L]. A typical term ofnonlinear mixing, $\begin{matrix}{{\int_{0}^{2L}{{{P\left( {z,{2L}} \right)}\left\lbrack {{\gamma(z)}{v_{m}\left( {z,t} \right)}{v_{n}\left( {z,t} \right)}{v_{m + n - k}^{*}\left( {z,t} \right)}} \right\rbrack}\quad{\mathbb{d}s}}} = {{\int_{0}^{L}{{{P\left( {z,{2L}} \right)}\left\lbrack {{\gamma(z)}{v_{m}\left( {z,t} \right)}{v_{n}\left( {z,t} \right)}{v_{m + n - k}^{*}\left( {z,t} \right)}} \right\rbrack}\quad{\mathbb{d}s}}} + {\int_{L}^{2L}{{P\left( {z,{2L}} \right)}\left\lbrack {{{{\gamma(z)}{v_{m}\left( {z,t} \right)}{v_{n}\left( {z,t} \right)}{v_{m + n - k}^{*}\left( {z,t} \right)}\quad{\mathbb{d}s}} = {{\int_{0}^{L}{{{P\left( {z,{2L}} \right)}\left\lbrack {{\gamma(z)}{v_{m}\left( {z,t} \right)}{v_{n}\left( {z,t} \right)}{v_{m + n - k}^{*}\left( {z,t} \right)}} \right\rbrack}\quad{\mathbb{d}s}}} + {\int_{0}^{L}{{{P^{*}\left( {z,{2L}} \right)}\left\lbrack {{\gamma(z)}{v_{m}^{*}\left( {z,t} \right)}{v_{n}^{*}\left( {z,t} \right)}{v_{m + n - k}\left( {z,t} \right)}} \right\rbrack}\quad{\mathbb{d}s}}}}},} \right.}}}} & (43)\end{matrix}$is therefore real-valued. It follows immediately that the first-ordernonlinear perturbation v′_(k)(2L, t) is purely imaginary-valued, whichis in quadrature phase with respect to the zeroth-order approximationv_(k)(2L, t)=v_(k)(0, t), ∀kεZ. When the span dispersion is not fullycompensated, namely, b₂(0, L)≠0, the input pulses to the first span atz=0 should be pre-chirped by an amount of dispersion equal to −½b₂(0,L), so that the input pulses to the second span at z=L are pre-chirpedby ½b₂(0, L) as a consequence. In other words, the input signals to thetwo spans should be oppositely chirped. Under this condition, theequation v_(k)(z+L, t)=v*_(k)(z, t), ∀zε[0, L], ∀kεZ is still valid, soare the above argument and the conclusion that v_(k) and v′_(k) arereal- and imaginary-valued respectively when brought chirp-free.

Mathematically, that v_(k) and v′_(k) are in quadrature phase implies|u_(k)|²=|v_(k)+v′_(k)|²=|v_(k)|²+|v′_(k)|², where |v′_(k)|² isquadratic, or of second-order, in terms of the Kerr nonlinearcoefficient. This fact has significant implications to the performanceof a transmission line. Firstly, it avoids pulse amplitude fluctuationsdue to the in-phase beating between signal pulses and nonlinear productsof intra-channel FWM, which could seriously degrade the signal qualityif not controlled [39, 45, 46, 51]. The quadrature-phased nonlinearproducts due to intra-channel FWM lead to the generation of “ghost”pulses in the “ZERO”-slots [44, 48, 49] and the addition of noise powerto the “ONE”-bits. As second-order nonlinear perturbations, theseeffects are less detrimental. Secondly, it eliminates pulse timingjitter due to intra-channel XPM up to the first-order nonlinearperturbation. Using the moment method [45, 46], the time of arrival forthe center of the kth pulse may be calculated as, $\begin{matrix}{{\left\langle t \right\rangle_{k} = {{\frac{\int_{- \infty}^{\infty}{t{u_{k}}^{2}\quad{\mathbb{d}t}}}{\int_{- \infty}^{\infty}{{u_{k}}^{2}\quad{\mathbb{d}t}}} \approx \frac{\int_{- \infty}^{\infty}{t{v_{k}}^{2}\quad{\mathbb{d}t}}}{\int_{- \infty}^{\infty}{{v_{k}}^{2}\quad{\mathbb{d}t}}}} = {kT}}},} & (44)\end{matrix}$which is clearly jitterless, ∀kεZ. In the calculation, the |v′_(k)|²terms are simply neglected as they represent second-order nonlinearperturbations.

Fiber spans for intra-channel nonlinearity compensation without OPC maybe similarly designed and arranged as those described in previoussections when OPC is used. A transmission fiber, either SMF or NZDSF,and its corresponding slope-matching DCF [3, 4] are a perfect pair forcompensating intra-channel nonlinearities, as their dispersions andslopes of dispersion satisfy the scaling rules of equation (34)perfectly, and the signal amplitudes may be easily adjusted to fulfilthe corresponding scaling rule. The so-called RDFs [7], as a specialtype of DCFs, may be suitably cabled into the transmission line andcontribute to the transmission distance, since the absolute dispersionvalue and loss coefficient of RDFs are both comparable to those of thetransmission fiber. Only the smaller modal area requires a lower levelof signal power for an RDF to compensate the nonlinearity of atransmission fiber. Otherwise the “one-for-many” compensation scheme maybe employed, where the signal power may be slightly adjusted for an RDFto compensate the nonlinearity of multiple transmission fibers. There isusually no power repeater between the transmission fiber and the cabledRDF within one span, so that the signal power decreases monotonically ineach fiber span, as shown in FIG. 29. Note that one fiber span has atransmission fiber followed by an RDF, while the other span has an RDFfollowed by a transmission fiber, in accordance with the scaling rulesof equation (34) for nonlinearity compensation. Alternatively, ifdistributive Raman amplification, especially backward Raman pumping, isused to repeat the signal power, then one span has the transmissionfiber Raman pumped in accordance with the RDF being Raman pumped in theother span. The signal power variation in each span may no longer bemonotonic, but the power profiles in two compensating spans should stillbe similar and obey the scaling rules of equation (34), especially inportions of fibers that experience high signal power.

For DCFs having absolute dispersion values much higher than thetransmission fiber, it is suitable to coil the DCF into a lumpeddispersion-compensating module (DCM) and integrate the module with amulti-stage optical amplifier at each repeater site. Two fiber spans inscaled translational symmetry for intra-channel nonlinearitycompensation should have oppositely ordered transmission fibers andDCFs. As shown in FIG. 30, one span has a piece of transmission fiberfrom A to B, in which the signal power decreases exponentially, and anoptical repeater at the end, in which one stage of a multi-stage opticalamplifier boosts the signal power up to a suitable level and feeds thesignal into a lumped DCM, where the signal power also decreasesexponentially along the length of the DCF from B to C, finally thesignal power is boosted by another stage of the optical amplifier. Theother span has the same transmission fiber and the same DCM, with thesignal power in the DCF from C to D tracing the same decreasing curve.However, this span has the DCM placed before the transmission fiber.Ironically, the efforts of improving the so-called figure-of-merit [1,4] by DCF vendors have already rendered the loss coefficients of DCFstoo low to comply with the scaling rules of equation (34). To benefitfrom nonlinearity compensation enabled by scaled translationalsymmetries, DCFs, at least parts of them carrying high signal power, maybe intentionally made more lossy during manufacturing or by means ofspecial packaging to introduce bending losses. As illustrated in FIG.30, the DCFs from B to C and from C to D are arranged in scaledtranslational symmetry to the transmission fibers from D to E and from Ato B respectively, such that the transmission fiber from A to B iscompensated by the DCF from C to D, and the DCF from B to C compensatesthe transmission fiber from D to E, for the most detrimental effects ofjittering in pulse amplitude and timing due to intra-channel FWM andXPM. In practice, the DCMs from B to D and the multi-stage opticalamplifiers may be integrated into one signal repeater, and the samesuper-span from A to E may be repeated many times to reach along-distance, with the resulting transmission line enjoying theeffective suppression of intra-channel nonlinear impairments. Again, incase distributive Raman pumping in the transmission fibers is employedto repeat the signal power, the DCFs may also be Raman pumped orerbium-doped for distributive amplification to have similar (scaled)power profiles as that in the transmission fibers for optimalnonlinearity compensation.

It should be noted that in regions of fibers carrying lower opticalpower, the scaling rules of fiber parameters in equation (34) may berelaxed without sacrificing the performance of nonlinearitycompensation, both for systems using cabled DCFs into the transmissionlines and for systems using lumped DCMs at the repeater sites. Suchrelaxation may be done for practical convenience, or to control theaccumulated dispersion in a span to a desired value, as well as toreduce the span loss so to reduce the penalty due to optical noise. Asan example and a potentially important invention in its own right, a DCMcompensating the dispersion and nonlinearity of transmission fibers maybe so packaged that the first part of DCF experiencing a high level ofsignal power may have a higher loss coefficient satisfying the scalingrule of equation (34), whereas the second part of DCF may ignore thescaling rule and become less lossy such that the signal power at the endof the DCM is not too low to be significantly impaired by the amplifiernoise. In fact, the low-loss part of the DCM may even use opticalfilters other than DCFs, such as fiber Bragg gratings and photonicintegrated circuits. This method of packaging DCMs achieves thecapability of nonlinearity compensation and good noise performancesimultaneously. For instance, it takes 10 km DCF with D′=−80 ps/nm/km tocompensate 100 km NZDSF with dispersion D=8 ps/nm/km and loss α=0.2dB/km. The first 4 km of the DCF may be made highly lossy by a specialtreatment in manufacturing or packaging, with a loss coefficient α′=2dB/km to form a scaled translational symmetry with respect to the first40 km NZDSF for optimal nonlinearity compensation. However, theremaining 6 km DCF may ignore the scaling rules and have a much lowernominal loss α′=0.6 dB/km. The total loss is reduced by 8.4 dB ascompared to a DCM that complies strictly with the scaling rulesthroughout the length of the DCF. Another important parameter of DCFs isthe effective modal area, or more directly the nonlinear coefficient.Traditional designs of DCFs have always strived to enlarge the modalarea so to reduce the nonlinear effects of DCFs. However, for DCFs usedin our method of nonlinearity compensation, there exists an optimalrange of modal area which should be neither too large nor too small.According to the scaling rules of equation (34), a DCF with a largemodal area may require too much signal power to generate sufficientnonlinearity to compensate the nonlinear effects of a transmissionfiber, while optical amplifiers may have difficulty to produce that muchsignal power. On the other hand, when the effective modal area is toosmall, the scaling rules of equation (34) dictate a reduced power levelfor the optical signal in the DCF, which may be more seriously degradedby optical noise, such as the amplified-spontaneous-emission noise froman amplifier at the end of the DCF.

It is further noted that the nonlinear responses of fiber spans ofdifferent lengths may be approximately the same so long as each of themis much longer than the effective length L_(eff)=1/α. This makesnonlinearity compensation possible among spans with different lengths,which are commonly seen in terrestrial and festoon systems, where thespan-distance between repeaters may vary according to the geographicalconditions. The dispersion of each fiber span may not be always fullycompensated, in which case it is desirable to fine-tune the fiberlengths such that any pair of compensating spans have the same amount ofresidual dispersion. The final note is that two compensating fiber spansare not necessarily located immediately next to each other as drawn inFIGS. 29 and 30. Sometimes, it may be advantageous to order pairs ofcompensating fiber spans in a mirror-symmetric manner similar to thatdiscussed previously, especially when all spans are not compensated tozero dispersion. Indeed, it is convenient to have the two spans of anycompensating pair accumulating the same amount of total dispersionincluding the sign. This would be achieved naturally if the twocompensating spans consist of exactly the same DCF and transmissionfiber of exactly the same lengths, with the only difference being theordering of the fibers. When a pair of compensating spans are not thesame in span distance, the length of either a DCF or a transmissionfiber may be fine-tuned, namely slightly elongated or shortened, to makesure that the two spans have the same accumulated dispersion. If thespans of a long-distance transmission line are labelled by −N, −N+1, . .. , −2, −1 and 1, 2, . . . , N−1, N from one end to the other, N>1, amirror-symmetric arrangement requires that spans −n and n, nε[1, N]should be paired for nonlinearity compensation, that is, their fiberparameters should satisfy the scaling rules of equation (34)approximately and their accumulated dispersions should be the same. Notethat the scaling rules may only be fulfilled approximately if the twospans have the same non-zero accumulated dispersion. Then pre- andpost-dispersion compensators may be employed at the two ends of thetransmission line to equalize the total dispersion and importantly, tomake sure that the accumulated dispersion from the transmitter to thebeginning of span −n is opposite to the accumulated dispersion from thetransmitter to the beginning of span n, for all nε[1, N], such that theinput signals to spans −n and n are complex conjugate, that isoppositely chirped, as required for compensating intra-channelnonlinearities. As an example, when all spans have the same accumulateddispersion b₂, the pre-dispersion compensator should provide −(N−½) b₂,while the post-dispersion compensator should contribute −(N+½) b₂. Orthe amount of post-dispersion compensation may be slightly differentfrom −(N+½) b₂, such that the overall dispersion of the transmissionline is not zero but within the tolerance of the transmitted pulses.More generally, if the accumulated dispersions of spans −n and n areB_(−n) and B_(n) respectively, which satisfy the conditionsB_(−n)=B_(n), ∀nε[1, N], while B_(m) and B_(n) are not necessarily thesame if m≠n, then the pre- and post-dispersion compensators may providerespectively ½B₁−Σ_(n=1) ^(N)B_(n) and −½B₁−Σ_(n=1) ^(N)B_(n) worth ofdispersion, approximately up to the tolerance of the transmitted pulses.It is worth pointing out that the single-channel nature of intra-channelnonlinearity compensation permits the use of channelized pre- andpost-dispersion compensators. Namely, at each end of the transmissionline, apart from a common pre- or post-dispersion compensator shared byall channels, each individual channel may have a channelized dispersiveelement, or a short piece of fiber with the length fine-tuned, tocompensate the channel-dependence of dispersion if any. Finally, itshould be noted that a recent paper [54] proposes to compensate thetiming jitter due to intra-channel XPM in a transmission fiber using thenonlinearity of a DCF, which is similar in spirit to our method ofintra-channel nonlinearity compensation using scaled translationalsymmetry. However, the proposal in [54, 55] is limited to thecompensation of timing jitter of RZ pulses that are Gaussian-shaped,whereas our method could compensate both the amplitude fluctuation andtiming jitter due to intra-channel nonlinear interactions of arbitrarilyshaped pulses, with the only condition for suppressing intra-channel FWMthat the signal pulses when chirp-free should be all real-valued upon asuitable choice of frequency and phase for the optical carrier. Moreimportantly, the work presented in [54, 55] did not recognize thesignificance of scaling the dispersion, loss and nonlinear coefficientsof the DCF with respect to the transmission fiber, which is a necessarycondition for optimal compensation of nonlinear effects. On thepractical side, the proposal in [54, 55] requires fiber Bragg gratingdispersion compensators, which are limited in operating bandwidth andmay suffer problems as thermal instability and group-delay ripples.

As usual, numerical simulations are carried out to support ourtheoretical analysis and verify the effectiveness of our method ofsuppressing intra-channel nonlinearity using scaled translationalsymmetry. In one test system, as depicted in FIG. 31, the transmissionline consists of 6 pairs of compensating fiber spans totaling atransmission distance of 1080 km. The first span in each pair has 50 kmSMF followed by 50 km RDF then an EDFA with gain 16 dB, the second spanhas 40 km RDF followed by 40 km SMF then an EDFA with gain 20 dB. Theother test system consists of the same number of spans with the samespan lengths, which are constructed using the same fibers and EDFAs asthe first system except that the second span in each span-pair has the40-km SMF placed before the 40-km RDF, as shown in FIG. 32. The EDFAnoise figure is 4 dB. The SMF has loss α=0.2 dB/km, dispersion D=16+δDps/nm/km, and dispersion slope S=0.055 ps/nm²/km, effective modal areaA_(eff)=80 μm², while the RDF has α=0.2 dB/km, D=−16 ps/nm/km, S=−0.055ps/nm²/km, and A_(eff)=30 μm². Fiber-based pre- and post-dispersioncompensators equalize 11/24 and 13/24 respectively of the totaldispersion accumulated in the transmission line. Both the SMF and theRDF have the same nonlinear index of silica n₂=2.6×10⁻²⁰ m²/W. Thetransmitter has four 40 Gb/s WDM channels. The center frequency is 193.1THz, and the channel spacing is 200 GHz. All four channels areco-polarized and RZ-modulated with 33% duty cycle and peak power of 15mW for the RZ pulses. The multiplexer (MUX) and DEMUX filters are Besselof the 7th order with 3 dB-bandwidth 80 GHz. The electrical filter isthird-order Bessel with 3 dB-bandwidth 28 GHz. The results offour-channel WDM transmissions have been compared with that ofsingle-channel transmissions, with no clearly visible differenceobserved, which indicates the dominance of intra-channel nonlinearityand the negligibility of inter-channel nonlinear effects. Several trialswith various values for δD have been simulated for each test system. Thefollowing figures present the eye diagrams of optical pulses afterwavelength DEMUX, in order to signify the nonlinear deformation (timingand amplitude jitters) of optical pulses and the generation ofghost-pulses. FIG. 33 shows the received optical pulses of δD=0 for thetwo test systems, with the amplifier noise being turned off to signifythe nonlinear impairments (bottom diagram) and the effectiveness ofnonlinearity compensation (top diagram). Clearly shown is thesuppression of nonlinear impairments by using scaled translationalsymmetry, and especially visible is the reduction of pulse timingjitter, as seen from the thickness of the rising and falling edges aswell as the timing of pulse peaks. In both eye diagrams, there areoptical pulses with small but discernable amplitudes above the floor ofzero signal power, which could be attributed to ghost-pulse generation[44, 48, 49] due to the uncompensated in-phase components ofintra-channel FWM. When the amplifier noise is turned back on, as shownin FIG. 34, the received signals become slightly more noisy, but thesuppression of nonlinear distortions is still remarkable when there isscaled translational symmetry. Then δD=0.2 ps/nm/km was set for the twotest systems of FIG. 31 and FIG. 32 respectively, in order to showcasethat a mirror-symmetric ordering of pairwise translationally symmetricfiber spans is fairly tolerant to the residual dispersions in individualfiber spans. In this setting, each fiber span has 10 or 8 ps/nm/km worthof residual dispersion, and the accumulated dispersion totals 108ps/nm/km for the entire transmission line. Importantly, the pre- andpost-dispersion compensators are set to compensate 11/24 and 13/24respectively of the total dispersion, ensuring at least approximatelythe complex conjugateness between the input signals to each pair ofspans in scaled translational symmetry. The amplifier noise is alsoturned on. The transmission results, as shown in FIG. 35, are verysimilar to that with 6D=0, which demonstrates the dispersion tolerancenicely. In a better optimized design to tolerate higher dispersionmismatch |δD|, either SMFs or RDFs may be slightly elongated orshortened in accordance with the value of δD, such that the sameresidual dispersion is accumulated in all spans. As an example, δD isset to 0.6 ps/nm/km and each 40-km SMF is elongated by about 0.4 km, sothat all spans have the same residual dispersion of 30 ps/nm/km, and thewhole transmission line accumulates 360 ps/nm/km worth of dispersion.The pre- and post-dispersion compensators equalize 360×11/24=165 and360×13/24=195 ps/nm/km worth of dispersion respectively. The amplifiernoise is still on. The transmission results are shown in FIG. 36.

For an example of intra-channel nonlinear compensation using“one-for-many” scaled translational symmetry, we have simulated anoptimized system using SMF+RDF and RDF+SMF spans as shown in FIG. 37 anda comparative system using all SMF+RDF spans as shown in FIG. 38. Eachsystem is a cascade of two identical transmission lines. Eachtransmission line has a loop recirculating twice, with each loopconsisting of four spans. In the optimized system, each loop consists ofthree SMF+RDF spans each consisting of 40 km SMF+40 km RDF+16 dB EDFA,and one RDF+SMF span consisting of 40 km RDF+40 km SMF+16 dB EDFA. Eachloop in the comparative system has all four identical SMF+RDF spansconsisting of 40 km SMF+40 km RDF+16 dB EDFA. The SMF has loss α=0.2dB/km, dispersion D=16 ps/nm/km, dispersion-slope S=0.055 ps/nm²/km,effective modal area A_(eff)=80 μm², and the RDF has α′=0.2 dB/km,D′=−16 ps/nm/km, S′=−0.055 ps/nm²/km, A′_(eff)=30 μm², the EDFA hasnoise FIG. 4 dB. The inputs are four 40 Gb/s channels, RZ modulated withpeak power 10 mW and duty cycle 33%. The channel spacing is 200 GHz. Theoptical MUX and DEMUX consist of Bessel filters of the 7th order with 3dB bandwidth 100 GHz. Note that the optimized system is configured suchthat each RDF+SMF span corresponds to and compensates the intra-channelnonlinear effects of three SMF+RDF spans. Again we have tried both acase with all spans being injected exactly the same amount of signalpower and a case with the RDF+SMF spans being fed with 10% more powercomparing to the SMF+RDF spans. No observable difference is found in thetransmission performance, which indicates robustness of the systemdesign against reasonable parameter deviations. The comparative systemhas no “one-for-many” scaled translational symmetry. FIG. 39 showstypical eye diagrams of the received optical signals at the mid-span ofthe transmissions, namely, after the first transmission line of 640 kmfor each system. The eye diagram of the optimized system showssignificantly reduced amplitude and timing jitters than the one of thecomparative system, which demonstrates the effect of intrachannelnonlinear compensation with the “one-for-many” scaled translationalsymmetry. At the end of the 1280 km transmissions, as shown in FIG. 40,the comparative system suffers from significantly more signaldegradations than the optimized system, especially in terms of amplitudeand timing jitters of the mark pulses. However, it is noted that theoptimized system is also penalized by the accumulation of noise energyin the “originally empty” time slots.

Reversing Intra-Channel Ghost-Pulse Generation by Mid-Span Self-PhaseModulation

In high-speed long-distance fiber-optic transmissions, a majorlimitation is imposed by the intra-channel nonlinear effects, such asthe pulse amplitude and timing jitters due to intrachannel cross-phasemodulation (IXPM) and intra-channel four-wave mixing (IFWM) respectively[39]. A method has been proposed to suppress the intra-channelnonlinearities using Raman-pumped transmission lines manifesting alossless or mirror-symmetric map of signal power [46, 52]. However, theloss of pump power makes it difficult to maintain a constant gain in along transmission fiber. Consequently, the significant deviation ofsignal power profile from a desired mirror-symmetric map degrades theresult of intra-channel nonlinear compensation using mirror symmetry[53]. The above has shown that transmission lines designed withtranslational symmetries in power and dispersion maps could alsoeffectively compensate the IXPM and one aspect of IFWM, so to greatlyreduce the timing and amplitude jitters. There have also been recentpublications along the similar direction [54, 55]. In particular, ourmathematical formulation in the previous section provides a general andunified theory for intra-channel nonlinearity compensation usingtranslational or mirror symmetry, and more importantly, it emphasizesthe necessity of scaling dispersion, loss coefficient, as well as theproduct of nonlinear coefficient and signal power in fibers, for optimalnonlinearity compensation. The one aspect of IFWM refers to amplitudefluctuation in the “pulse-ON” slots due to coherent superpositions ofnonlinearly generated fields onto the original pulses. However, neitherthe mirror nor the translational symmetry could hold back another aspectof IFWM, namely, the generation of “ghost-pulses” into the “pulse-OFF”slots where there are originally no optical pulses [44, 48, 56, 57]. Thegrowth of ghost-pulses will eventually limit the transmission distance.Here we show that self-phase modulation (SPM) in the middle could makethe two parts of a long transmission line generating oppositely signedghost amplitudes, such that the ghost-pulses are annihilated or greatlysuppressed at the end.

The amplitude envelope of a single channel may be represented by a sumof optical pulses, namely, A(z, t)=Σ_(k)u_(k)(z, t), where u_(k)(z, t)denotes the pulse in the kth time slot and centered at time t=kT, withkεZ and T>0 being the duration of one symbol. Again, the followingnonlinear Schrödinger equation describes the propagation and nonlinearinteractions among the pulses [39], $\begin{matrix}{{{\frac{\partial u_{k}}{\partial z} + {\frac{i\quad{\beta_{2}(k)}}{2}\frac{\partial^{2}u_{k}}{\partial t^{2}}} + {\frac{\alpha(z)}{2}u_{k}}} = {i\quad{\gamma(z)}{\sum\limits_{m}\quad{\sum\limits_{n}\quad{u_{m}u_{n}u_{m + n - k}^{*}}}}}},{\forall{k \in Z}},} & (45)\end{matrix}$where the right-hand side keeps only those nonlinear products thatsatisfy the phase-matching condition. The nonlinear mixing terms witheither m=k or n=k contribute to SPM and IXPM, while the rest with bothm≠k and n≠k are responsible for IFWM [39]. For a pulse-OFF time slot,for example the kth, the original pulse amplitude u_(k)(0, t)=0, howeverthe Kerr nonlinearity will generate a ghost amplitude into this slot. Inthe regime of weak nonlinearity where perturbation theory applies, theghost amplitude is approximated by a linear accumulation of nonlinearproducts over the propagation distance, $\begin{matrix}{{u_{k}\left( {z,t} \right)} \approx {\int_{0}^{z}{\sum\limits_{m \neq k}\quad{\sum\limits_{n \neq k}\quad{{u_{m}\left( {s,t} \right)}{u_{n}\left( {s,t} \right)}{u_{m + n - k}^{*}\left( {s,t} \right)}\quad{{\mathbb{d}s}.}}}}}} & (46)\end{matrix}$

Consider two transmission lines in cascade, one stretching from z=0 toz=L, the other from z=L to z=L+L′. Assuming dispersion is compensated ineach line such that optical pulses “return” approximately to theiroriginal shapes at z=L and z=L+L′. Each line may consist of multiplepower-repeated and dispersion-equalized fiber spans which are suitablyarranged to form a scaled translational or mirror symmetry. Therefore,both lines are effective for suppressing the timing and amplitudejitters in the pulse-ON slots. However, they are not able to prevent thegrowth of ghost amplitudes in the pulse-OFF slots. The two lines are notnecessarily the same, but assumed to generate approximately the sameghost amplitudes, namely, $\begin{matrix}{{{{\int_{L}^{L + L^{\prime}}{\sum\limits_{m \neq k}\quad{\sum\limits_{n \neq k}\quad{{u_{m}\left( {z,t} \right)}{u_{n}\left( {z,t} \right)}{u_{m + n - k}^{*}\left( {z,t} \right)}\quad{\mathbb{d}z}}}}} \approx {u_{k}\left( {L,t} \right)}} = {\int_{0}^{L}{\sum\limits_{m \neq k}\quad{\sum\limits_{n \neq k}\quad{{u_{m}\left( {z,t} \right)}{u_{n}\left( {z,t} \right)}{u_{m + n - k}^{*}\left( {z,t} \right)}\quad{\mathbb{d}z}}}}}},} & (47)\end{matrix}$for all pulse-OFF slots labelled by k. So the ghost amplitude willaccumulate into u_(k)(L+L′, t)=2u_(k)(L, t) at the end, as long as theperturbation assumption still holds. If the transmission lines becometoo long, the approximation of linear accumulation of ghost amplitudeswill eventually break down. The ghost amplitudes will actually growexponentially as a result of parametric amplification pumped by the markpulses. A method of ghost-pulse suppression may need to clean the ghostamplitudes or start reversing their accumulation before they become toostrong.

Now consider introducing a self-phase modulator for each wavelengthchannel in the middle of the two lines at z=L, and adjusting the signalpower such that the amount of nonlinear phase shift reaches πapproximately at the peak of an optical pulse. FIG. 41 shows such twotransmission lines with channelized SPM in the middle, where eachtransmission line is scaled translationally symmetrically configured forintra-channel nonlinearity compensation. After mid-span SPM, all“originally ON” pulses acquire approximately a π phase shift, while theghost-pulses in the “originally OFF” time slots experience negligible tosmall phase shifts due to their low power level. As a consequence, theIFWM products generated in the second line from z=L to z=L+L′ wouldacquire a factor (−1)³=−1 with respect to when mid-span SPM is absent.For a typical pulse-OFF slot labelled by k, the following calculationgives the ghost amplitude generated from start to end through the twotransmission lines with SPM in the middle, $\begin{matrix}{{{{\int_{0}^{L}{\sum\limits_{m \neq k}\quad{\sum\limits_{n \neq k}\quad{{u_{m}\left( {z,t} \right)}{u_{n}\left( {z,t} \right)}{u_{m + n - k}^{*}\left( {z,t} \right)}\quad{\mathbb{d}z}}}}} + {\int_{L}^{L + L^{\prime}}{\sum\limits_{m \neq k}\quad{\sum\limits_{n \neq k}\quad{{{\left\lbrack {- {u_{m}\left( {z,t} \right)}} \right\rbrack\left\lbrack {- {u_{n}\left( {z,t} \right)}} \right\rbrack}\left\lbrack {- {u_{m + n - k}\left( {z,t} \right)}} \right\rbrack}^{*}\quad{\mathbb{d}z}}}}}} = {{{\int_{0}^{L}{\sum\limits_{m \neq k}\quad{\sum\limits_{n \neq k}\quad{{u_{m}\left( {z,t} \right)}{u_{n}\left( {z,t} \right)}{u_{m + n - k}^{*}\left( {z,t} \right)}\quad{\mathbb{d}z}}}}} - {\int_{L}^{L + L^{\prime}}{\sum\limits_{m \neq k}\quad{\sum\limits_{n \neq k}\quad{{u_{m}\left( {z,t} \right)}{u_{n}\left( {z,t} \right)}{u_{m + n - k}^{*}\left( {z,t} \right)}\quad{\mathbb{d}z}}}}}} \approx 0}},} & (48)\end{matrix}$according to equation (47). Instead of adding up constructively, theghost amplitudes generated by the two lines interfere destructively tocancel each other at the end z=L+L′. Good transmission performance maybe expected from the overall system, as a result of the suppression ofamplitude and timing jitters for originally ON pulses and theelimination of ghost-pulses in the originally OFF time slots.

For implementations, the self-phase modulator may be based on the fiberKerr nonlinearity [25], cascaded χ⁽²⁾ in LiNbO₃ waveguides [58, 59], theindex change induced by carrier density variations in semiconductoroptical amplifiers [60], or a combination of a photodiode detecting theoptical pulses and electro-optic phase modulator driven by the generatedelectrical pulses [61, 62]. A fiber-based self-phase modulator may be abetter choice than others because of its simplicity and capability ofpolarization-insensitive operation. Furthermore, a suitable value offiber dispersion may be chosen such that optical pulses propagate in asoliton-like manner through the nonlinear fiber, in order to reduce thepulse spectral broadening due to SPM [25]. If SPM is not properlybalanced by dispersion, then only the peak of a pulse receives a π phaseshift, the rising and falling edges experience less and varying phaseshifts, which lead to frequency chirp and spectral broadening. Excessivespectral broadening may cause crosstalk among wavelength channels anddecrease the spectral efficiency (rate of data transmission in bit/sover available optical bandwidth in Hz) of transmission systems. Asoliton, namely a hyperbolic secant pulse, could propagate invariantlyin a lossless fiber given the condition −β₂=γP₀T₀ ², where β₂ and γ arethe dispersion and nonlinear coefficients of the fiber, P₀ and T₀ arethe peak power and width parameter of the pulse [25]. For actual fiberswith loss, strict soliton propagation may not be possible, but the totalfiber dispersion may be adjusted so to minimize the frequency chirp ofpulses at the end, or to control the chirp at a desired level. Anoptical filter may also be employed after SPM to limit the spectralwidth of pulses.

For numerical verifications, we have simulated and compared theperformance of three transmission lines, all of which use SMFs with lossα=0.2 dB/km, dispersion D=16 ps/nm/km, effective modal area A_(eff)=80μm², and RDFs, namely reverse dispersion fibers, with loss α′=0.2 dB/km,dispersion D′=−16 ps/nm/km, effective modal area A′_(eff)=30 μm², aswell as EDFAs with noise FIG. 4 dB. The first setup is a conventionaldesign consisting of 16 fiber spans, each span has 45 km SMF, followedby 45 km RDF, and a 18 dB EDFA at the end. The second setup isconfigured to form a scaled translational symmetry, having 8 repetitionsof (50 km SMF+50 km RDF+16 dB EDFA)+(40 km RDF+40 km SMF+20 dB EDFA).Note that the EDFA gains are set in a way that the signal powers intothe 50-km SMF and the 40-km RDF are properly scaled. The third system isthe same as the second, except for channelized SPM in the middle, usinga high-power EDFA, an optical DEMUX/MUX pair, and for each channel a10-km nonlinear fiber with effective modal area A″_(eff)=20 μm², lossα″=0.3 dB/km, and dispersion D″≈3 ps/nm/km. The optical power is boostedto 80 mW before entering each SPM fiber, and attenuated back to thenominal level for transmissions after the self-phase modulator. Allfibers are made of silica glass with nonlinear index n₂=2.6×10⁻²⁰ m²/W.Input to all three systems are four 40 Gb/s channels, spaced by 200 GHz,co-polarized, and return-to-zero modulated with 33% duty and peak power15 mW. The optical filters are of order 7 with bandwidth 100 GHz forMUX/DEMUX. The transmission results are shown in FIG. 42. It is evidentthat the conventional setup suffers a great deal fromnonlinearity-induced amplitude and timing jitters, which are greatlyreduced in the system with scaled translational symmetry, where,however, the ghost-pulse generation imposes a serious limitation. Withboth scaled translational symmetry and mid-span SPM, the third systemenjoys a superb signal quality at the end, with small signalfluctuations due to EDFA noise and possibly a little residualnonlinearity.

At the end of the previous section, we have seen that even an optimizedsystem using SMF+RDF and RDF+SMF spans with “one-for-many” scaledtranslational symmetry suffers a great deal of noise in the originallyOFF time slots. A good part of the noise energy there may be due to thegrowth of ghost-pulses, which is not suppressed by the “onefor-many”scaled translational symmetry alone. Naturally, the above-describedmethod of mid-span SPM may be applied to an optimized system with“one-for-many” scaled translational symmetry. When channelized SPM isintroduced at the mid-span of the optimized system depicted in FIG. 37,the resulted setup is shown in FIG. 43. The optical eye diagram receivedat the end of the 1280 km transmissions is shown in FIG. 44, where theghost-pulses are substantially removed, in sharp contrast to the topdiagram of FIG. 40.

It should be noted that the present method of ghost-pulse suppression bymid-span SPM is not limited to transmission lines with scaledtranslational symmetries. One or both sides, before or/and after thechannelized SPM, may be configured in mirror symmetry as well forintra-channel nonlinearity compensation [46, 52], and ghost-pulsesuppression would be just as effective, provided that the two sidesgenerate nearly the same ghost amplitudes to originally empty dataslots. Moreover, one or both sides may be a general transmission linethat is not optimally designed for intra-channel nonlinearitycompensation. In which case, ghost-pulse generations may still be wellsuppressed due to the cancellation of ghost amplitudes generated by thetwo sides, however the mark pulses in the originally ON data slots maysuffer significant jitters in amplitude and timing, as a result of thetransmission system being lacking in a (scaled) translational or mirrorsymmetry.

It is interesting to compare the present method of mid-span SPM andsignal reshaping based on nonlinear optical loop mirrors (NOLMs) [63,64], both of which are able to suppress ghost-pulses, and both arechannelized solutions suitable for systems with a high modulation speed,because where the number of wavelength channels is less and higheroptical power is available in each channel for efficient nonlineareffects. While a NOLM is often regarded as a lumped signal regenerator,mid-span SPM may be viewed as a method of distributive signalregeneration, whose action takes place through an entire transmissionline. Practically, mid-span SPM would be more convenient than NOLMs, asthe latter require interferometry stability and are sensitive tovariations of fiber birefringence [65]. On the other hand, NOLMs arecapable of “removing” random optical noise due to amplified spontaneousemission and loss-induced quantum noise [66], while mid-span SPM is not.

Optimal Packaging of Dispersion Compensating Fibers for MatchedNonlinear Compensation and Reduced Optical Noise

Dispersion compensating fibers have become essential components inhigh-speed long-distance fiber-optic transmissions. Often they arepackaged into compact DCMs and integrated with fiber optical amplifiersat the repeater sites. The loss of signal power in DCFs requires extragain from optical amplifiers, and amplifiers introduce noise. Because oftheir small modal area, DCFs could be significant contributors ofnonlinearity if the power of signals carried is not limited to a lowlevel. In the past, DCF manufacturers have strived to reduce the loss ofDCFs and to lower their nonlinearity by enlarging the modal area [67].However, reduced DCF nonlinearity does not necessarily translate intoimproved overall transmission performance. In the above, we havedemonstrated that the nonlinear response of DCFs may be takenadvantageously to compensate the nonlinearity of transmission fibers(TFs). Simply minimizing the loss in such nonlinearity-compensating DCFsis not necessarily aligned with the best system performance either. Herewe propose and analyze a method of packaging DCFs to achieve optimalnonlinearity compensation and good signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)simultaneously. Simply stated, an optimally packaged DCM may consist oftwo (or more) portions of DCFs with higher and lower loss coefficients.In the first portion that experiences high signal power, the losscoefficient may be intentionally increased in proportion to the DCFdispersion with respect to a TF. In another portion where the signalpower is low and nonlinearity is negligible, the loss coefficient may beminimized to output stronger signals while compensating the remainingdispersion due to the TF.

Effective nonlinearity compensation between DCFs and TFs, with orwithout optical phase conjugation (OPC), relies on careful arrangementsof different types of fibers in a transmission line to form theso-called scaled translational symmetry. The above has established theanalytical theory and numerical simulations verifying nonlinearitycompensation using translational symmetry. Basically, for two fibers tobe matched for a translational symmetry in the scaled sense about anoptical phase conjugator, their parameters need to obey the followingscaling rules,[α′, β′₂, β′₃ , γ′P′ ₀ , g′(t)P′ ₀ ]=R[α, −β ₂, β₃ , γP ₀ , g(t)P₀],  (49)where α, β₂, β₃, γ, and g(t) are the loss, second-order dispersion,third-order dispersion, Kerr and Raman nonlinear coefficientsrespectively for one fiber, while the “primed” parameters are thecorresponding parameters of the other fiber, P₀ and P′₀ are the signalpowers input to the two fibers respectively, R>0 is a scaling factor.Such scaled translational symmetry proves to enable nonlinearitycompensation between the two matched fibers up to the first-ordernonlinear perturbation. The seemingly limited compensation capabilitybased on perturbation is in fact quite relevant and powerful inpractice, because the nonlinear response of each fiber segment is indeedperturbative in long-distance transmission lines, and matched fiberpairs may be arranged in a mirror-symmetric order to effectively undothe nonlinear distortions that may have accumulated far beyond theregime of perturbations. In the absence of OPC, a DCF and a TF may stillbe arranged into a translational symmetry in the scaled sense accordingto the following rules,(α′, β′₂, β′₃ , γ′P′ ₀)=R(α, −β₂, −β₃ , γP ₀),  (50)where again (α, β₂, β₃, γ) and (α′, β′₂, β′₃, γ′) are parameters of thetwo types of fibers respectively. In both cases of scaling rules ofequations (49) and (50), the requirements for the third-orderdispersions may be relaxed, then the two fibers are not in stricttranslational symmetry across a band of wavelength channels, rather thesymmetry and nonlinearity compensation between them become approximate.Nevertheless, such approximation is often a good one when the value of|β₂/β₃| is high, so that the percentage change of β₂ is only smallacross the band, which is exactly the case for SMFs in the 1550-nm band.

In our methods of compensating fiber nonlinearity using translationalsymmetry with or without optical phase conjugation,dispersion-compensating fibers are brought into scaled translationalsymmetry with respect to TFs such as SMFs and NZDSFs. As noted before,in regions of dispersion-compensating fibers carrying lower opticalpower, the scaling rules of fiber parameters in equations (49) or (50)may be relaxed without sacrificing the performance of nonlinearitycompensation, both for systems using cabled DCFs into the transmissionlines and for systems using lumped DCMs at the repeater sites. Suchrelaxation may be done for practical convenience, or to control theaccumulated dispersion in a span to a desired value, as well as toreduce the span loss so to reduce the penalty due to optical noise. Asillustrated in FIG. 45, a compact dispersion-compensating module or adispersion-compensating transmission line may consist of two portions ofdispersion-compensating fiber concatenated, where the first portioncarrying high-power signals may have an intentionally increased losscoefficient to form a scaled translational symmetry with a TF, while thesecond portion experiencing low signal power could have the minimal losscoefficient and does not need to satisfy any scaling rule. The twoportions of DCF with higher and minimal loss coefficients may be of onewhole piece of fiber coiled with different radiuses, or differentlyfabricated DCFs with different loss coefficients and possibly differentdispersions, so long as the first fiber is in scaled translationalsymmetry to a target TF. The minimal loss coefficient refers to thelowest fiber loss coefficient that is achievable in practicalfabrication of dispersion-compensating fibers. The loss coefficient ofthe fiber portion on the left side of FIG. 45 is higher in the sensethat it is intentionally made higher than what is achievable bypractical manufacturing processes.

The great advantage of nonlinearity compensation using scaledtranslational symmetry is that a pair of matched fiber segments arerequired to have the same sign for the loss/gain coefficients andopposite dispersions. Such conditions are naturally satisfied inconventional fiber transmission systems, where a TF, for example an SMF,may be paired with a DCF as matched counterparts. However, traditionaltransmission lines are usually set up with the same configuration forall spans, that is, with a TF followed by a DCF. Consequently, theaccumulated dispersion in all spans is single-sided, namely, staysalways positive or always negative. Such may be called an M-typedispersion map, as shown in FIG. 46, where no two spans could form ascaled translational symmetry. Our proposal is to simply exchange theordering of the TF and DCF for some spans, which may be paired withtraditional spans to form an N-type dispersion map, where theaccumulated dispersion may go both positive and negative and trace anN-like curve, as shown in FIG. 47. A scaled translational symmetry isformed between two matched fiber spans as in FIG. 47, in the sense thatthe TF of the first span is scaled translationally symmetric to the DCFof the second span, and the DCF of the first span is scaledtranslationally symmetric to the TF of the second span. Suchtranslational symmetry between two matched spans could cancel some oftheir intra-channel nonlinearities, or compensate all nonlinearities upto the first-order perturbation if an optical phase conjugator isinstalled in the middle. Furthermore, many pairs of matched spans may bearranged into a mirror-symmetric order about the point of OPC to form along-distance transmission line, whose second part could undo thenonlinear distortions due to the first part that may have accumulatedfar beyond the regime of perturbations.

In traditional transmission lines, each fiber span has a TF and a DCM atthe end, which consists of a conventional DCF with a multi-stage EDFA.Many such conventional fiber spans are cascaded to form a line with theM-type dispersion map, as shown on the top of FIG. 48, where aconventional DCM is denoted by CDCMM in short. If the order of TF andDCF is switched for every other span, then an N-type dispersion map isformed, and two adjacent DCFs may be packaged into one DCM, denoted byCDCM_N, as shown in the middle of FIG. 48. As a result of the N-typedispersion map, intra-channel nonlinearities may be suppressed to someextend, and all fiber nonlinearities may be partially compensated at thepresence of OPC in the middle of the transmission line. However, thecompensation of nonlinearity is not optimal as the scaling rules ofequation (49) or (50) are not satisfied by conventional DCFs paired withTFs. Indeed, DCF manufacturers have succeeded in reducing the loss ofDCFs, as it was thought to monotonically improve the performance oftransmission systems [67]. The dispersion-to-loss ratio (DLR) ofstate-of-the-art DCFs is often much larger than that of TFs. From thestand point of matched nonlinearity compensation, it would beadvantageous to (intentionally) raise the loss of DCFs such that theDLRs of DCFs and TFs are matched to satisfy the scaling rules, at leastfor portions of fibers carrying high-power signals. On the other hand,in regions of DCFs experiencing low signal power, the nonlinearity isweak and negligible, then the scaling rules may be disregarded and theloss of DCFs may be minimized to enhance the optical SNR at the end ofdispersion compensation. Therefore, an optimized DCM (ODCM), as shown atthe bottom of FIG. 48, may consist of sections of DCFs with higher andlower loss coefficients, as well as multiple EDFA stages to repeat thesignal power and regulate the signal power in the lossier portions ofDCFs, according to a set of scaling rules with respect to the TFs.Higher DCF loss may be induced by impurity-doping during fibermanufacturing [32, 33] or by bending loss during fiber packaging [24].

Therefore, a DCM compensating the dispersion and nonlinearity oftransmission fibers may be so packaged that the first portion of DCFexperiencing a high level of signal power may have a higher losscoefficient satisfying the scaling rule in equation (49) or (50),whereas the second portion of DCF may ignore the scaling rules andbecome less lossy such that the signal power at the end of the DCM isnot too low to be significantly impaired by the amplifier noise. Infact, the low-loss portion of the DCM may even use optical filters otherthan DCFs, such as fiber Bragg gratings and photonic integratedcircuits. This method of packaging DCMs achieves the capability ofnonlinearity compensation and good noise performance simultaneously. Forinstance, it takes 10 km DCF with D′=−80 ps/nm/km to compensate 100 kmNZDSF with dispersion D=8 ps/nm/km and loss α=0.2 dB/km. The first 4 kmof the DCF may be made highly lossy by a special treatment inmanufacturing or packaging, with a loss coefficient α′=2 dB/km to form ascaled translational symmetry with respect to the first 40 km NZDSF foroptimal nonlinearity compensation. However, the remaining 6 km DCF mayignore the scaling rules and have a much lower nominal loss α′=0.6 dB/km[4]. The total loss is reduced by 8.4 dB as compared to a DCM thatcomplies strictly with the scaling rules throughout the length of theDCF. Another important parameter of DCFs is the effective modal area, ormore directly the nonlinear coefficient. Traditional designs of DCFshave always strived to enlarge the modal area so to reduce the nonlineareffects of DCFs. However, for DCFs used in our methods of nonlinearitycompensation, there exists an optimal range of modal area which shouldbe neither too large nor too small. According to the scaling rules ofequation (49) or (50), a DCF with a large modal area may require toomuch signal power to generate sufficient nonlinearity to compensate thenonlinear effects of a transmission fiber, while optical amplifiers mayhave difficulty to produce that much signal power. On the other hand,when the effective modal area is too small, the scaling rules ofequation (49) or (50) dictate a reduced power level for the opticalsignal in the DCF, which may be more seriously degraded by opticalnoise, such as loss-induced quantum noise [66] and theamplified-spontaneous-emission noise from an amplifier at the end of theDCF.

To give an example of ODCM and test its performance in nonlinearitycompensation, we simulated (using VPItransmissionMaker™) and comparedthree transmission systems as shown in FIGS. 49, 50, and 51respectively, all of which have an optical phase conjugator in themiddle and 6 recirculating loops on each side of OPC. For the firstsystem, each recirculating loop consists of two identical spans of 100km SMF followed by a CDCM_M, as shown on the top of FIG. 48. For thesecond system, each recirculating loop has 100 km SMF followed by aCDCM_N, then 100 km SMF followed by a 20 dB EDFA, as shown in the middleof FIG. 48. For the third and optimized system, each recirculating loopconsists of 100 km SMF followed by an ODCM, then 100 km SMF followed bya 20 dB EDFA, as shown at the bottom of FIG. 48. Each CDCMM has a 15 dBEDFA, 20 km conventional DCF, then a 15 dB EDFA. Each CDCM_N has a 15 dBEDFA, 20 km conventional DCF, then another 15 dB EDFA, 20 kmconventional DCF, and finally a 10 dB EDFA. By contrast, each ODCMconsists of a 21 dB EDFA, 10 km optimized DCF, 10 km conventional DCF, a14 dB EDFA, then 10 km optimized DCF, 10 km conventional DCF, and a 15dB EDFA. Note the adjustment of signal power in the optimized DCFs tofulfil the scaling rules. The SMF has loss α=0.2 dB/km, dispersion D=16ps/nm/km, dispersion slope S=0.055 ps/nm²/km, effective modal areaA_(eff)=80 μm². The conventional DCF has (α′, D′, S′, A′_(eff))=(0.5,−80, −0.275, 20) in the same units. The optimized DCF differs from theconventional one only by the loss coefficient α″=1.0 dB/km. The samesilica nonlinear index n₂=2.6×10⁻²⁰ m²/W is taken for all fibers. AllEDFAs have the same noise figure of 4 dB. The center frequency is 193.1THz. The inputs are four 40 Gb/s channels, spaced by 200 GHz,co-polarized and return-to-zero modulated with 33% duty and pulse peakpower 15 mW. The eye diagrams of optical signals at the end oftransmissions are shown in FIG. 52, where the top diagram displayssevere nonlinear distortions for the conventional line with the M-typedispersion map, while the middle diagram shows improved but stillseriously impaired signals of the line with the N-type dispersion mapusing conventional DCMs. The bottom diagram demonstrates a significantimprovement of signal quality by using optimized DCMs and scaledtranslational symmetry, where the signal distortions are mainly due toEDFA noise and possibly some uncompensated nonlinearity.

Even without OPC, improved transmission performance due to intra-channelnonlinearity compensation may be expected in transmission systemsmanifesting scaled translational symmetries using optimally packagedDCMs for matched nonlinear compensation and reduced optical noisesimultaneously. Furthermore, the method of mid-span SPM discussedpreviously may be employed in such transmission systems using ODCMs tosuppress the generation of ghost-pulses, which are not controlled byscaled translational symmetries alone. Finally, it is noted that thesame principle for optimally packaging DCMs, namely, obeying scalingrules where the signal power is high while disregarding the rules andminimizing the signal loss where the signal power is low, may besimilarly applied to the design of transmission systems with cabledDCFs. For a piece of DCF cabled into a transmission line, the firstportion of the DCF may have a relatively low absolute value ofdispersion in proportion to its low loss coefficient, according to thescaling rules of translational symmetry to a transmission fiber as inequation (49) or (50). Whereas in the second portion of the DCF, wherethe signal power becomes sufficiently low, the dispersion may be set ashigh as possible while the loss coefficient should remain minimal,because no scaling rules need to be regarded.

Appendix: Fiber Parameters

Using the D and S parameters carelessly can lead to confusion. Forinstance, the values D=16 ps/nm/km and S=0.08 ps/nm²/km are often citedfor the standard single-mode fiber. We note that it is necessary to usethe D and S values at the same wavelength for the same fiber to avoidconfusion. At 1550 nm, the SMF has D≈16 ps/nm/km and S≈0.055 ps/nm²/kminstead of 0.08 ps/nm²/km, which is the approximate dispersion slope at1310 nm. Regarding the use of D and S in simulations, our scaling rulesare for β₂ and β₃, not directly D and S. The relations are given by,$\begin{matrix}{{D\overset{def}{=}{\frac{d\quad\beta_{1}}{d\quad\lambda} = {{\frac{d\quad\omega}{d\quad\lambda}\frac{d\quad\beta_{1}}{d\quad\omega}} = {{- \frac{2\quad\pi\quad c\quad\beta_{2}}{\lambda^{2}}} = {- \frac{2\pi\quad f^{2}\beta_{2}}{c}}}}}},} & (51) \\{S\overset{def}{=}{\frac{dD}{d\quad\lambda} = {{\frac{4\quad\pi\quad c\quad\beta_{2}}{\lambda^{3}} + \frac{4\quad\pi^{2}c^{2}\beta_{3}}{\lambda^{4}}} = {\frac{4\quad\pi\quad f^{3}\beta_{2}}{c^{2}} + {\frac{4\quad\pi^{2}f^{4}\beta_{3}}{c^{2}}.}}}}} & (52)\end{matrix}$Conversely, $\begin{matrix}{{\beta_{2} = {- \frac{cD}{2\quad\pi\quad f^{2}}}},} & (53) \\{\beta_{3} = {{\frac{c^{2}S}{4\quad\pi^{2}f^{4}} - \frac{\beta_{2}}{\pi\quad f}} = {\frac{c^{2}S}{4\quad\pi^{2}f^{4}} + {\frac{cD}{2\quad\pi^{2}f^{3}}.}}}} & (54)\end{matrix}$The speed of light c=2.9979×10⁸ m/s. For the optical frequency f=193.1THz, λ=c/f=1552.5 nm. The standard single-mode fiber (SMF) has,D=16 ps/nm/km=16×10⁻⁶ s/m²,  (55)S=0.055 ps/nm²/km=0.055×10³ s/m³,  (56)therefore, $\begin{matrix}\begin{matrix}{\beta_{2} = {{- \frac{2.9979 \times 10^{8} \times 16 \times 10^{- 6}}{2 \times 3.14159 \times 1.931^{2} \times 10^{28}}}{s^{2}/m}}} \\{= {{- 2.047} \times 10^{- 26}\quad{s^{2}/m}}} \\{{= {{- 20.47}\quad{{ps}^{2}/{km}}}},}\end{matrix} & (57)\end{matrix}$and, $\begin{matrix}\begin{matrix}{\beta_{3} = {\frac{2.9979^{2} \times 10^{16} \times 0.055 \times 10^{3}}{4 \times 3.14159^{2} \times 1.931^{4} \times 10^{56}} + {\frac{2.047 \times 10^{- 26}}{3.14159 \times 1.931 \times 10^{14}}{s^{3}/m}}}} \\{= {{0.09006 \times 10^{- 39}} + {0.03374 \times 10^{- 39}\quad{s^{3}/m}}}} \\{= {0.1238\quad{{ps}^{3}/{{km}.}}}}\end{matrix} & (58)\end{matrix}$For convenience, the parameters (D, S) and (β₂, β₃) may be convertednumerically as,D=−0.78163 β₂,  (59)S=0.610704 β₃+0.0010066 β₂,  (60)and conversely,β₂=−1.279375 D,  (61)β₃=1.637455 S+0.00210875 D,  (62)where D, S, β₂, β₃ are in units of ps/nm/km, ps/nm²/km, ps²/km, ps³/kmrespectively.

With a scaling factor R=1, a mirror-symmetric compensating fiber wouldhave,β′₂=β₂=−20.47 ps²/km,  (63)β′₃=−β₃=−0.1238 ps³/km,  (64)correspondingly, $\begin{matrix}{{D^{\prime} = {{- \frac{2\pi\quad f^{2}\beta_{2}^{\prime}}{c}} = {{- \frac{2\pi\quad f^{2}\beta_{2}}{c}} = {D = {16\quad{{{ps}/{nm}}/{km}}}}}}},} & (65) \\\begin{matrix}{S^{\prime} = {{\frac{4\pi\quad f^{3}\beta_{2}^{\prime}}{c^{2}} + \frac{4\pi^{2}f^{4}\beta_{3}^{\prime}}{c^{2}}} = {\frac{4\pi\quad f^{3}\beta_{2}}{c^{2}} - \frac{4\pi^{2}f^{4}\beta_{3}}{c^{2}}}}} \\{= {{S - \frac{8\pi^{2}f^{4}\beta_{3}}{c^{2}}} = {S - {\frac{8\pi^{2}f^{4}}{c^{2}}\left( {\frac{c^{2}S}{4\pi^{2}f^{4}} + \frac{cD}{2\pi^{2}f^{3}}} \right)}}}} \\{= {{{- S} - \frac{4\quad{fD}}{c}} = {{{- 0.055} \times 10^{3}} - {0.04122 \times 10^{3}\quad{s/m^{3}}}}}} \\{{= {{- 0.09622}\quad{{{ps}/{nm}^{2}}/{km}}}},}\end{matrix} & (66)\end{matrix}$whereas a compensating fiber in translational symmetry would have,β″₂=−β₂=20.47 ps²/km,  (67)β″₃β₃=0.1238 ps³/km,  (68)correspondingly, $\begin{matrix}{{D^{''} = {{- \frac{2\pi\quad f^{2}\beta_{2}^{''}}{c}} = {\frac{2\pi\quad f^{2}\beta_{2}}{c} = {{- D} = {{- 16}\quad{ps}\text{/}{nm}\text{/}{km}}}}}},} & (69) \\\begin{matrix}{S^{''} = {{\frac{4\pi\quad f^{3}\beta_{2}^{''}}{c^{2}} + \frac{4\pi^{2}f^{4}\beta_{3}^{''}}{c^{2}}} = {{- \frac{4\pi\quad f^{3}\beta_{2}}{c^{2}}} + \frac{4\pi^{2}f^{4}\beta_{3}}{c^{2}}}}} \\{= {- \left( {\frac{4\pi\quad f^{3}\beta_{2}}{c^{2}} - \frac{4\pi^{2}f^{4}\beta_{3}}{c^{2}}} \right)}} \\{= {{S + \frac{4\quad{fD}}{c}} = {0.09622\quad{ps}\text{/}{nm}^{2}\text{/}{{km}.}}}}\end{matrix} & (70)\end{matrix}$By contrast, for perfect direct (without OPC) dispersion compensation,the compensating fiber should have parameters −(β₂, β₃), andcorrespondingly −(D, S). When the scaling factor is not one, theparameters of the compensating fibers should multiply whatever the ratioR>0, for all the three cases.

Another important parameter is the effective modal area A_(eff), oftenspecified alternatively by the mode field diameter (MFD). The MFD isdefined as the diameter of the circle where the optical intensity decaysto 1/e of the peak value. If the modal field is approximated asGaussian, then there is the relation, $\begin{matrix}{A_{eff}\overset{def}{=}{{\int_{0}^{\infty}{{\exp\left\lbrack {{- 4}\quad{r^{2}/({MFD})^{2}}} \right\rbrack}2\pi\quad r\quad{\mathbb{d}r}}} = {{\pi({MFD})}^{2}/4.}}} & (71)\end{matrix}$

REFERENCES

-   1. A. H. Gnauck and R. M. Jopson, “Dispersion compensation for    optical fiber systems,” in Optical Fiber Telecommunications III    A, I. P. Kaminow and T. L. Koch, eds. (Academic Press, San Diego,    1997).-   2. F. Forghieri, R. W. Tkach and A. R. Chraplyvy, “Fiber    nonlinearities and their impact on transmission systems,” in Optical    Fiber Telecommunications III A, I. P. Kaminow and T. L. Koch, eds.    (Academic Press, San Diego, 1997).-   3. V. Srikant, “Broadband dispersion and dispersion slope    compensation in high bit rate and ultra long haul systems,” OFC    2001, paper TuH1.-   4. M. J. Li, “Recent progress in fiber dispersion compensators,”    European Conference on Optical Communication 2001, paper Th.M.1.1.-   5. S. N. Knudsen and T. Veng, “Large effective area dispersion    compensating fiber for cabled compensation of standard single mode    fiber,” OFC 2000, paper TuG5.-   6. Q. L. N.T., T. Veng, and L. Gruner-Nielsen, “New dispersion    compensating module for compensation of dispersion and dispersion    slope of non-zero dispersion fibres in the C-band,” OFC 2001, paper    TuH5.-   7. K. Mukasa, H. Moridaira, T. Yagi, and K. Kokura, “New type of    dispersion management transmission line with MDFSD for long-haul 40    Gb/s transmission,” OFC 2002, paper ThGG2.-   8. M. Gorlier, P. Sillard, F. Beaumont, L.-A. de Montmorillon, L.    Fleury, Ph. Guenot, A. Bertaina, and P. Nouchi, “Optimized    NZDSF-based link for wide-band seamless terrestrial transmissions,”    OFC 2002, paper ThGG7.-   9. A. Yariv, D. Fekete, and D. M. Pepper, “Compensation for channel    dispersion by nonlinear optical phase conjugation,” Opt. Lett. 4,    52-54 (1979).-   10. D. M. Pepper and A. Yariv, “Compensation for phase distortions    in nonlinear media by phase conjugation,” Opt. Lett. 5, 59-60    (1980).-   11. S. Watanabe and M. Shirasaki, “Exact compensation for both    chromatic dispersion and Kerr effect in a transmission fiber using    optical phase conjugation,” J. Lightwave Technol. 14, 243-248    (1996).-   12. I. Brener, B. Mikkelsen, K. Rottwitt, W. Burkett, G.    Raybon, J. B. Stark, K. Parameswaran, M. H. Chou, M. M. Fejer, E. E.    Chaban, R. Harel, D. L. Philen, and S. Kosinski, “Cancellation of    all Kerr nonlinearities in long fiber spans using a LiNbO₃ phase    conjugator and Raman amplification,” OFC 2000, paper PD33.-   13. M. H. Chou, I. Brener, M. M. Fejer, E. E. Chaban, and S. B.    Christman, “1.5-μm-band wavelength conversion based on cascaded    second-order nonlinearity in LiNbO₃ waveguides,” IEEE Photon.    Technol. Lett. 11, 653-655 (1999).-   14. S. Radic, R. M. Jopson, C. J. McKinstrie, A. H. Gnauck, S.    Chandrasekhar, and J. C. Centanni, “Wavelength division multiplexed    transmission over standard single mode fiber using polarization    insensitive signal conjugation in highly nonlinear optical fiber,”    OFC 2003, paper PD12.-   15. H. Wei and D. V. Plant, “On the capacity of nonlinear fiber    channels,” arXiv:physics/0307020 at http://arxiv.org/.-   16. H. Wei and D. V. Plant, “Two means of compensating fiber    nonlinearity using optical phase conjugation,” arXiv:physics/0307022    at http://arxiv.org/.-   17. H. Wei and D. V. Plant, “Fundamental equations of nonlinear    fiber optics,” in Optical Modeling and Performance    Predictions, M. A. Kahan, ed., Proc. SPIE 5178, 255-266 (2003).-   18. K. Rottwitt and A. J. Stentz, “Raman amplification in lightwave    communication systems,” in Optical Fiber Telecommunications IV A:    Components, I. P. Kaminow and T. Li, eds. (Academic Press, San    Diego, 2002).-   19. E. Desurvire, Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers: Principles and    Applications (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1994).-   20. M. Vasilyev, B. Szalabofka, S. Tsuda, J. M. Grochocinski,    and A. F. Evans, “Reduction of Raman MPI and noise figure in    dispersion-managed fiber,” Electron. Lett. 38, no. 6, 271-272    (2002).-   21. J.-C. Bouteiller, K. Brar, and C. Headley, “Quasi-constant    signal power transmission,” European Conference on Optical    Communication 2002, paper S3.04.-   22. M. Vasilyev, “Raman-assisted transmission: toward ideal    distributed amplification,” OFC 2003, paper WB1.-   23. M. E. Marhic, N. Kagi, T.-K. Chiang, and L. G. Kazovsky,    “Cancellation of third-order non-linear effects in amplified fiber    links by dispersion compensation, phase conjugation, and alternating    dispersion,” Opt. Lett. 20, no. 8, 863-865 (1995).-   24. J. A. Buck, Fundamentals of Optical Fibers (Wiley, New York,    1995), Chapter 4.-   25. G. P. Agrawal, Nonlinear Fiber Optics, 2nd ed. (Academic Press,    San Diego, 1995), Chapter 2.-   26. The use of β_(k)'s as defined in, for example Ref. [25], is    connected to an approximation β²(ω)−β₀ ²≈2β₀[β(ω)−β₀] with    sacrificed accuracy. Our present definition, as originally appeared    in Ref. [17], should be used for better accuracy.-   27. K.-J. Engel and R. Nagel, One-Parameter Semigroups for Linear    Evolution Equations (Springer-Verlag, New York, 2000).-   28. E. E. Narimanov and P. Mitra, “The channel capacity of a fiber    optics communication system: perturbation theory,” J. Lightwave    Technol. 20, 530-537 (2002).-   29. A. Yariv, Optical Electronics in Modern Communications, 5th ed.    (Oxford University Press, 1997), Chapter 3.-   30. At any position z, the Kerr coefficient γ(z) has a well-defined    sign, which is by convention positive for most physical materials.    However, the Raman coefficient g(z, t) is usually an oscillating    function in the time delay t, as shown in reference [31].    Nevertheless, one may still call a Raman impulse response g(z, t)    “positive” or “negative” depending upon whether its first peak with    the least time delay is positive- or negative-valued.-   31. R. H. Stolen, J. P. Gordon, W. J. Tomlinson, and H. A. Haus,    “Raman response function of silica-core fibers,” J. Opt. Soc. Am. B    6, 1159-1166 (1989).-   32. K. Nouchi, E. Matsuyama, Y. Morishita, and G. Tanimoto,    “Ultra-wideband response in Co²⁺-doped fiber attenuators,” ECOC    2001, paper P.2.-   33. D. J. DiGiovanni, S. K. Das, L. L. Blyler, W. White, R. K.    Boncek, and S. E. Golowich, “Design of optical fibers for    communications systems,” in Optical Fiber Telecommunications IV A:    Components, I. P. Kaminow and T. Li, eds. (Academic Press, San    Diego, 2002).-   34. L. Gruner-Nielsen, Y. Qian, B. Palsdottir, P. B. Gaarde, S.    Dyrbol, T. Veng, and Y. Qian, “Module for simultaneous C+L-band    dispersion compensation and Raman amplification,” OFC 2002, paper    TuJ6.-   35. T. Miyamoto, T. Tsuzaki, T. Okuno, M. Kakui, M. Hirano, M.    Onishi, and M. Shigematsu, “Raman amplification over 100    nm-bandwidth with dispersion and dispersion slope compensation for    conventional single mode fiber,” OFC 2002, paper TuJ7.-   36. C. Rasmussen, T. Fjelde, J. Bennike, F. Liu, S. Dey, B.    Mikkelsen, P. Mamyshev, P. Serbe, P. van der Wagt, Y. Akasaka, D.    Harris, D. Gapontsev, V. Ivshin, P. Reeves-Hall, “DWDM 40G    transmission over trans-Pacific distance (10,000 km) using    CSRZ-DPSK, enhanced FEC and all-Raman amplified 100 km UltraWave™    fiber spans,” OFC 2003, paper PD18.-   37. M. Eiselt, M. Shtaif, R. W. Tkach, F. A. Flood, S. Ten, and D.    Butler, “Cross-phase modulation in an L-band EDFA,” IEEE Photon.    Technol. Lett. 11, 1575-1577 (1999).-   38. H. S. Chung, S. K. Shin, D. W. Lee, D. W. Kim, and Y. C. Chung,    “640 Gbit/s (32×20 Gbit/s) WDM transmission with 0.4(bit/s)/Hz    spectral efficiency using short-period dispersion-managed fiber,”    Elec. Lett. 37, 618-620 (2001).-   39. R.-J. Essiambre, G. Raybon, and B. Mikkelson, “Pseudo-linear    transmission of high-speed TDM signals: 40 and 160 Gb/s,” in Optical    Fiber Telecommunications IV B: Systems and Impairments, I. P.    Kaminow and T. Li, eds. (Academic Press, San Diego, 2002).-   40. P. Kaewplung, T. Angkaew, and K. Kikuchi, “Simultaneous    suppression of third-order dispersion and sideband instability in    single-channel optical fiber transmission by midway optical phase    conjugation employing higher order dispersion management,” J.    Lightwave Technol. 21, 1465-1473 (2003).-   41. For example, a nearly perfect translational symmetry may be    formed between Corning's LEAF, a +NZDSF with D≈4 ps/nm/km, S≈0.1    ps/nm²/km, and its Vascade LEAF, a −NZDSF with D≈−4 ps/nm/km, S≈0.1    ps/nm²/km in the C band. The fiber parameters are available at    http://www.corning.com/opticalfiber.-   42. F. Forghieri, R. W. Tkach, A. R. Chraplyvy, and D. Marcuse,    “Reduction of four-wave mixing crosstalk in WDM systems using    unequally spaced channels,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 6, 754-756    (1994).-   43. F. Forghieri, R. W. Tkach, and A. R. Chraplyvy, “WDM systems    with unequally spaced channels,” J. Lightwave Technol. 13, 889-897    (1995).-   44. P. V. Mamyshev and N. A. Mamysheva, “Pulse-overlapped    dispersion-managed data transmission and intrachannel four-wave    mixing,” Opt. Lett. 24, 1454-1456 (1999).-   45. A. Mecozzi, C. B. Clausen, and M. Shtaif, “Analysis of    intrachannel nonlinear effects in highly dispersed optical pulse    transmission,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 12, 392-394 (2000).-   46. A. Mecozzi, C. B. Clausen, M. Shtaif, S.-G. Park, and A. H.    Gnauck, “Cancellation of timing and amplitude jitter in symmetric    links using highly dispersed pulses,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett.    13, 445-447 (2001).-   47. J. Martensson, A. Berntson, M. Westlund, A. Danielsson, P.    Johannisson, D. Anderson, and M. Lisak, “Timing jitter owing to    intrachannel pulse interactions in dispersion-managed transmission    systems,” Opt. Lett. 26, 55-57 (2001).-   48. P. Johannisson, D. Anderson, A. Berntson, and J. Martensson,    “Generation and dynamics of ghost pulses in strongly    dispersion-managed fiber-optic communication systems,” Opt. Lett.    26, 1227-1229 (2001).-   49. M. J. Ablowitz and T. Hirooka, “Resonant nonlinear intrachannel    interactions in strongly dispersion-managed transmission systems,”    Opt. Lett. 25, 1750-1752 (2000).-   50. M. J. Ablowitz and T. Hirooka, “Intrachannel pulse interactions    in dispersion-managed transmission systems: timing shifts,” Opt.    Lett. 26, 1846-1848 (2001).-   51. M. J. Ablowitz and T. Hirooka, “Intrachannel pulse interactions    in dispersion-managed transmission systems: energy transfer,” Opt.    Lett. 27, 203-205 (2002).-   52. T. Hirooka and M. J. Ablowitz, “Suppression of intrachannel    dispersion-managed pulse interactions by distributed amplification,”    IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 14, 316-318 (2002).-   53. R. Hainberger, T. Hoshita, T. Terahara, and H. Onaka,    “Comparison of span configurations of Raman-amplified    dispersion-managed fibers,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 14, 471-473    (2002).-   54. A. Striegler, A. Wietfeld, and B. Schmauss, “Fiber based    compensation of IXPM induced timing jitter,” OFC 2004, paper MF72.-   55. A. G. Striegler and B. Schmauss, “Compensation of intrachannel    effects in symmetric dispersion-managed transmission systems,” J.    Lightwave Technol., vol. 22, no. 8, 1877-1882, August 2004.-   56. R.-J. Essiambre, B. Mikkelsen, and G. Raybon, “Intra-channel    cross-phase modulation and four-wave mixing in high-speed TDM    systems,” Electron. Lett., vol. 35, no. 18, pp. 1576-1578, 1999.-   57. F. Merlaud and S. K. Turitsyn, “Intra-channel four wave mixing    and ghost pulses generation: time domain approach,” ECOC'00, paper    7.2.4, Munich, Germany, Sep. 3-7, 2000.-   58. P. Vidakovic, D. J. Lovering, J. A. Levenson, J. Webjrn, and P.    St.J. Russell, “Large nonlinear phase shift owing to cascaded χ⁽²⁾    in quasi-phase-matched bulk LiNbO₃ ,” Opt. Lett., vol. 22, no. 5,    pp. 277-279, March 1997.-   59. X. Liu, X. Wei, R. E. Slusher, and C. J. McKinstrie, “Improving    transmission performance in differential phase-shift-keyed systems    by use of lumped nonlinear phase-shift compensation,” Opt. Lett.,    vol. 27, no. 18, pp. 1616-1618, September 2002.-   60. G. P. Agrawal and N. A. Olsson, “Self-phase modulation and    spectral broadening of optical pulses in semiconductor laser    amplifiers,” IEEE J. Quantum Electron., vol. 25, no. 11, pp.    2297-2306, November 1989.-   61. C. Xu and X. Liu, “Postnonlinearity compensation with    data-driven phase modulators in phase-shift keying transmission,”    Opt. Lett., vol. 27, no. 18, 1619-1621, September 2002.-   62. J. Hansryd, J. van Howe, and C. Xu, “Experimental demonstration    of nonlinear phase jitter compensation in DPSK modulated fiber    links,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 232-234,    January 2005.-   63. N. J. Doran and D. Wood, “Nonlinear optical loop mirror,” Opt.    Lett., vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 56-58, 1988.-   64. Z. Huang, A. Gray, I. Khrushchev, and I. Bennion, “10-Gb/s    transmission over 100 Mm of standard fiber using 2R regeneration in    an optical loop mirror,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., vol. 16, no.    11, pp. 2526-2528, November 2004.-   65. D. B. Mortimore, “Fiber loop reflectors,” J. Lightwave Technol.,    vol. 6, no. 7, pp. 1217-1224, 1988.-   66. H. Wei and D. V. Plant, “Quantum noise in optical communication    systems,” in Optical Modeling and Performance Predictions, M. A.    Kahan, ed., Proc. SPIE, vol. 5178, pp. 139-147, 2003.-   67. T. Kato, M. Hirano, K. Fukuda, A. Tada, M. Onishi, and M.    Nishimura, OFC 2001, paper TuS6.

1. An optical communications link, comprising: a first fiber spanincluding a first fiber line, said first fiber line comprising a firstfiber segment and having a first loss/gain coefficient profile, a firstsecond-order dispersion coefficient profile, and a first nonlinearcoefficient-power product profile; a second fiber span including asecond fiber line, said second fiber line comprising a second fibersegment and having a second loss/gain coefficient profile, a secondsecond-order dispersion coefficient profile, and a second nonlinearcoefficient-power product profile; and an optical phase conjugatoroptically coupled between said first and second fiber spans, an opticalsignal received by said first fiber span being propagated respectivelythrough said first fiber span, said optical phase conjugator, and saidsecond fiber span; wherein said first fiber span, said second fiberspan, and said optical phase conjugator are configured such that (i)said second loss/gain coefficient profile along said second fibersegment is in substantial scaled translational symmetry with said firstloss/gain coefficient profile along said first fiber segment by a firstconstant, (ii) said second second-order dispersion coefficient profilealong said second fiber segment is in substantial scaled translationalsymmetry with said first second-order dispersion coefficient profileoppositely signed along said first fiber segment by said first constant,and (iii) said second nonlinear coefficient-power product profile alongsaid first fiber segment is in substantial scaled translational symmetrywith said first nonlinear coefficient-power product profile along saidsecond fiber segment by said first constant, whereby progressivecompensation along said second fiber segment of at least onenonlinearity introduced along said first fiber segment is facilitated.2. The optical communications link of claim 1, said first constant beingrepresented by R₁, said first loss/gain coefficient profile beingrepresented by α₁(z), and said second loss/gain coefficient profilebeing represented by α₂(z), wherein said substantial scaledtranslational symmetry is characterized by R₁α₁(R₁z)≈α₂(z) along saidfirst and second segments.
 3. The optical communications link of claim1, said first constant being represented by R₁, said second-orderdispersion coefficient profile being represented by β₁(z), and saidsecond second-order dispersion coefficient profile being represented byβ₂(z), wherein said substantial scaled translational symmetry ischaracterized by −R₁β₁(R₁z)≈β₂(z) along said first and second segments.4. The optical communications link of claim 1, said first constant beingrepresented by R₁, said first nonlinear coefficient-power productprofile being represented by (γ_(g)P)₁(z), and said second nonlinearcoefficient-power product profile being represented by (γ_(g)P)₂(z),wherein said substantial scaled translational symmetry is characterizedby R₁(γ_(g)P)₁(R₁z)≈(γ_(g)P)₂(z) along said first and second segments.5. The optical communications link of claim 1, wherein each of saidfirst and second nonlinear coefficient-power product profiles comprisesa lengthwise profile of a Kerr coefficient times a power level of theoptical signal propagating through said first and second fiber lines,respectively.
 6. The optical communications link of claim 1, whereineach of said first and second nonlinear coefficient-power productprofiles comprises a lengthwise profile of a Raman coefficient times apower level of the optical signal propagating through said first andsecond fiber lines, respectively.
 7. The optical communications link ofclaim 1, said first fiber line further comprising a third fiber segmentconnected to said first fiber segment at a first location where saidfirst nonlinear coefficient-power product profile becomes generallysmall compared to a maximum value thereof, said second fiber linefurther comprising a fourth fiber segment connected to said second fibersegment at a second location where said second nonlinearcoefficient-power product profile becomes generally small compared to amaximum value thereof, wherein at least one of said loss/gaincoefficient profile substantial scaled translational symmetry, saidsecond-order dispersion coefficient profile substantial scaledtranslational symmetry, and said nonlinear coefficient-power productprofile substantial scaled translational symmetry is not satisfiedbetween said first and second fiber lines for said third and fourthfiber segments, said non-satisfaction accommodating length variations insaid third and fourth fiber segments designed to achieve predeterminedtarget values for accumulated second-order dispersion for each of saidfirst and second fiber lines, said non-satisfaction not substantiallyconfounding results of said progressive compensation of said at leastone nonlinearity due to relatively low power levels in said third andfourth segments.
 8. The optical communications link of claim 7, whereinsaid first nonlinear coefficient-power product profile at said firstlocation is less than 10% of said maximum value of said first nonlinearcoefficient-power product profile, and wherein said second nonlinearcoefficient-power product profile at said second location is less than10% of said maximum value of said second nonlinear coefficient-powerproduct profile, whereby minimal nonlinearities are introduced into theoptical signal along said third and fourth fiber segments.
 9. Theoptical communications link of claim 1, wherein said opticalcommunications link is configured such that a complex amplitude of theoptical signal at an input to said second fiber line is proportional toa complex conjugate of the complex amplitude of the optical signal at aninput to said first fiber line.
 10. The optical communications link ofclaim 1, further comprising: a third fiber span including a third fiberline, said third fiber line comprising a third fiber segment and havinga third loss/gain coefficient profile, a third second-order dispersioncoefficient profile, and a third nonlinear coefficient-power productprofile; and a fourth fiber span including a fourth fiber line, saidfourth fiber line comprising a fourth fiber segment and having a fourthloss/gain coefficient profile, a fourth second-order dispersioncoefficient profile, and a fourth nonlinear coefficient-power productprofile; wherein said third and fourth fiber spans are configured suchthat (i) said fourth loss/gain coefficient profile along said fourthfiber segment is in substantial scaled translational symmetry with saidthird loss/gain coefficient profile along said third fiber segment by asecond constant, (ii) said fourth second-order dispersion coefficientprofile along said fourth fiber segment is in substantial scaledtranslational symmetry with said third second-order dispersioncoefficient profile oppositely signed along said third fiber segment bysaid second constant, and (iii) said fourth nonlinear coefficient-powerproduct profile along said fourth fiber segment is in substantial scaledtranslational symmetry with said third nonlinear coefficient-powerproduct profile along said third fiber segment by said second constant,whereby progressive compensation along said fourth fiber segment of atleast one nonlinearity introduced along said third fiber segment isfacilitated.
 11. The optical communications link of claim 10, said thirdfiber span being positioned subsequently to said first fiber span andprior to said optical phase conjugator relative to a direction of signalpropagation, said fourth fiber span being positioned subsequently tosaid second fiber span relative to said direction of signal propagation.12. The optical communications link of claim 11, wherein said first andsecond fiber segments comprise transmission single-mode fibers, andwherein said third and fourth fiber segments comprisedispersion-compensating fibers.
 13. The optical communications link ofclaim 12, wherein said first, second, third, and fourth loss/gaincoefficient profiles respectively comprise constant values α₁, α₂, α₃,and α₄ along said first, second, third, and fourth segments,respectively, wherein α₁ and α₂ are each less than 0.5, wherein α₃ andα₄ are each greater than 1.0, and wherein said optical communicationslink further comprises: a fifth fiber span positioned between said thirdfiber span and said optical phase conjugator, said fifth fiber spanincluding a fifth fiber line, said fifth fiber line comprising a fifthfiber segment and having a fifth loss/gain coefficient profile, a fifthsecond-order dispersion coefficient profile, and a fifth nonlinearcoefficient-power product profile; and a sixth fiber span positionedbetween said optical phase conjugator and said second fiber span, saidsixth fiber span including a sixth fiber line, said sixth fiber linecomprising a sixth fiber segment and having a sixth loss/gaincoefficient profile, a sixth second-order dispersion coefficientprofile, and a sixth nonlinear coefficient-power product profile;wherein said fifth and sixth fiber spans are configured such that (i)said sixth loss/gain coefficient profile along said sixth fiber segmentis in substantial scaled translational symmetry with said fifthloss/gain coefficient profile along said fifth fiber segment by a thirdconstant, (ii) said sixth second-order dispersion coefficient profilealong said sixth fiber segment is in substantial scaled translationalsymmetry with said fifth second-order dispersion coefficient profileoppositely signed along said fifth fiber segment by said third constant,and (iii) said sixth nonlinear coefficient-power product profile alongsaid sixth fiber segment is in substantial scaled translational symmetrywith said fifth nonlinear coefficient-power product profile along saidfifth fiber segment by said third constant, whereby progressivecompensation along said sixth fiber segment of at least one nonlinearityintroduced along said fifth fiber segment is facilitated.
 14. Theoptical communications link of claim 10, said third fiber span beingpositioned subsequently to said first fiber span and prior to saidoptical phase conjugator relative to a direction of signal propagation,said fourth fiber span being positioned subsequently to said opticalphase conjugator and prior to said second fiber span relative to saiddirection of signal propagation.
 15. The optical communications link ofclaim 14, wherein said first and second fiber segments comprisetransmission single-mode fibers, and wherein said third and fourth fibersegments comprise dispersion-compensating fibers.
 16. The opticalcommunications link of claim 15, wherein said first, second, third, andfourth loss/gain coefficient profiles respectively comprise constantvalues α₁, α₂, α₃, and α₄ along said first, second, third, and fourthsegments, respectively, wherein α₁ and α₂ are each less than 0.5,wherein α₃ and α₄ are each greater than 1.0, and wherein said opticalcommunications link further comprises: a fifth fiber span positionedbetween said third fiber span and said optical phase conjugator, saidfifth fiber span including a fifth fiber line, said fifth fiber linecomprising a fifth fiber segment and having a fifth loss/gaincoefficient profile, a fifth second-order dispersion coefficientprofile, and a fifth nonlinear coefficient-power product profile; and asixth fiber span positioned between said optical phase conjugator andsaid fourth fiber span, said sixth fiber span including a sixth fiberline, said sixth fiber line comprising a sixth fiber segment and havinga sixth loss/gain coefficient profile, a sixth second-order dispersioncoefficient profile, and a sixth nonlinear coefficient-power productprofile; wherein said fifth and sixth fiber spans are configured suchthat (i) said sixth loss/gain coefficient profile along said sixth fibersegment is in substantial scaled translational symmetry with said fifthloss/gain coefficient profile along said fifth fiber segment by a thirdconstant, (ii) said sixth second-order dispersion coefficient profilealong said sixth fiber segment is in substantial scaled translationalsymmetry with said fifth second-order dispersion coefficient profileoppositely signed along said fifth fiber segment by said third constant,and (iii) said sixth nonlinear coefficient-power product profile alongsaid sixth fiber segment is in substantial scaled translational symmetrywith said fifth nonlinear coefficient-power product profile along saidfifth fiber segment by said third constant, whereby progressivecompensation along said sixth fiber segment of at least one nonlinearityintroduced along said fifth fiber segment is facilitated.
 17. Theoptical communications link of claim 1, said first and second fiberlines further having first and second third-order dispersion coefficientprofiles, respectively, wherein said second third-order dispersioncoefficient profile along said second fiber segment is in substantialscaled translational symmetry with said first third-order dispersioncoefficient profile along said first segment by said first constant. 18.The optical communications link of claim 16, wherein each of said firstand second fiber segments is a non-zero dispersion-shifted fiber(NZDSF).
 19. The optical communications link of claim 16, wherein eachof said first and second fiber segments is a dispersion-shifted fiber(DSF).
 20. The optical communications link of claim 1, wherein saidfirst constant is in the range of 0.05 to
 20. 21. An opticalcommunications link, comprising: a first fiber span including a firstfiber line, said first fiber line comprising a first fiber segment andhaving a first loss/gain coefficient profile, a first second-orderdispersion coefficient profile, and a first nonlinear coefficient-powerproduct profile; a second fiber span including a second fiber line, saidsecond fiber line comprising a second fiber segment and having a secondloss/gain coefficient profile, a second second-order dispersioncoefficient profile, and a second nonlinear coefficient-power productprofile; and wherein said first and second fiber spans are configuredsuch that (i) said second loss/gain coefficient profile along saidsecond fiber segment is in substantial scaled translational symmetrywith said first loss/gain coefficient profile along said first fibersegment by a first constant, (ii) said second second-order dispersioncoefficient profile along said second fiber segment is in substantialscaled translational symmetry with said first second-order dispersioncoefficient profile oppositely signed along said first fiber segment bysaid first constant, and (iii) said second nonlinear coefficient-powerproduct profile along said first fiber segment is in substantial scaledtranslational symmetry with said first nonlinear coefficient-powerproduct profile along said second fiber segment by said first constant,whereby progressive compensation along said second fiber segment of atleast one nonlinearity introduced along said first fiber segment isfacilitated.
 22. The optical communications link of claim 21, said firstconstant being represented by R₁, said first loss/gain coefficientprofile being represented by α₁(z), and said second loss/gaincoefficient profile being represented by α₂(z), wherein said substantialscaled translational symmetry is characterized by R₁α₁(R₁z)≈α₂(z) alongsaid first and second segments.
 23. The optical communications link ofclaim 21, said first constant being represented by R₁, said second-orderdispersion coefficient profile being represented by β₁(z), and saidsecond second-order dispersion coefficient profile being represented byβ₂(z), wherein said substantial scaled translational symmetry ischaracterized by −R₁β₁(R₁z)≈β₂(z) along said first and second segments.24. The optical communications link of claim 21, said first constantbeing represented by R₁, said first nonlinear coefficient-power productprofile being represented by (γ_(g)P)₁(z), and said second nonlinearcoefficient-power product profile being represented by (γ_(g)P)₂(z),wherein said substantial scaled translational symmetry is characterizedby R₁(γ_(g)P)₁(R₁z)≈(γ_(g)P)₂(z) along said first and second segments.25. The optical communications link of claim 21, said first fiber linefurther comprising a third fiber segment connected to said first fibersegment at a first location where said first nonlinear coefficient-powerproduct profile becomes generally small compared to a maximum valuethereof, said second fiber line further comprising a fourth fibersegment connected to said second fiber segment at a second locationwhere said second nonlinear coefficient-power product profile becomesgenerally small compared to a maximum value thereof, wherein at leastone of said loss/gain coefficient profile substantial scaledtranslational symmetry, said second-order dispersion coefficient profilesubstantial scaled translational symmetry, and said nonlinearcoefficient-power product profile substantial scaled translationalsymmetry is not satisfied between said first and second fiber lines forsaid third and fourth fiber segments, said non-satisfactionaccommodating length variations in said third and fourth fiber segmentsdesigned to achieve predetermined target values for accumulatedsecond-order dispersion for each of said first and second fiber lines,said non-satisfaction not substantially confounding results of saidprogressive compensation of said at least one nonlinearity due torelatively low power levels in said third and fourth segments.
 26. Theoptical communications link of claim 25, wherein said first nonlinearcoefficient-power product profile at said first location is less than10% of said maximum value of said first nonlinear coefficient-powerproduct profile, and wherein said second nonlinear coefficient-powerproduct profile at said second location is less than 10% of said maximumvalue of said second nonlinear coefficient-power product profile,whereby minimal nonlinearities are introduced into the optical signalalong said third and fourth fiber segments.
 27. The opticalcommunications link of claim 21, wherein said optical communicationslink is configured such that a complex amplitude of the optical signalat an input to said second fiber line is proportional to a complexconjugate of the complex amplitude of the optical signal at an input tosaid first fiber line.
 28. The optical communications link of claim 21,further comprising: a third fiber span including a third fiber line,said third fiber line comprising a third fiber segment and having athird loss/gain coefficient profile, a third second-order dispersioncoefficient profile, and a third nonlinear coefficient-power productprofile; and a fourth fiber span including a fourth fiber line, saidfourth fiber line comprising a fourth fiber segment and having a fourthloss/gain coefficient profile, a fourth second-order dispersioncoefficient profile, and a fourth nonlinear coefficient-power productprofile; wherein said third and fourth fiber spans are configured suchthat (i) said fourth loss/gain coefficient profile along said fourthfiber segment is in substantial scaled translational symmetry with saidthird loss/gain coefficient profile along said third fiber segment by asecond constant, (ii) said fourth second-order dispersion coefficientprofile along said fourth fiber segment is in substantial scaledtranslational symmetry with said third second-order dispersioncoefficient profile oppositely signed along said third fiber segment bysaid second constant, and (iii) said fourth nonlinear coefficient-powerproduct profile along said fourth fiber segment is in substantial scaledtranslational symmetry with said third nonlinear coefficient-powerproduct profile along said third fiber segment by said second constant,whereby progressive compensation along said fourth fiber segment of atleast one nonlinearity introduced along said third fiber segment isfacilitated.
 29. The optical communications link of claim 28, furthercomprising an optical phase conjugator optically coupled between saidfirst and second fiber spans such that (a) an optical signal receivedand propagated through one of said first and third fiber spans proceeds,in order, through (b) the other of said first and third fiber spans, (c)said optical phase conjugator, (d) one of said second and fourth fiberspans, and (e) the other of said second and fourth fiber spans, whereinsaid first and second fiber segments comprise transmission single-modefibers, wherein said third and fourth fiber segments comprisedispersion-compensating fibers.
 30. The optical communications link ofclaim 29, said third fiber span being positioned subsequently to saidfirst fiber span and prior to said optical phase conjugator relative toa direction of signal propagation, wherein said third fiber segment ispackaged within a first module co-located with a second module encasingsaid optical phase conjugator.
 31. The optical communications link ofclaim 30, wherein said first, second, third, and fourth loss/gaincoefficient profiles respectively comprise constant values α₁, α₂, α₃,and α₄ along said first, second, third, and fourth segments,respectively, wherein α₁ and α₂ are each less than 0.5, and wherein α₃and α₄ are each greater than 1.0.
 32. The optical communications link ofclaim 28, (a) an optical signal received and propagated through one ofsaid first and third fiber spans proceeding, in order, through (b) theother of said first and third fiber spans, (c) one of said second andfourth fiber spans, and (d) the other of said second and fourth fiberspans, wherein said first and second fiber segments comprisetransmission single-mode fibers, wherein said third and fourth fibersegments comprise dispersion-compensating fibers.
 33. The opticalcommunications link of claim 32, said third fiber span being positionedsubsequently to said first fiber span relative to a direction of signalpropagation, said fourth fiber span being prior to said second fiberspan relative to said direction of signal propagation, wherein saidthird and fourth fiber segments are packaged into a common module. 34.The optical communications link of claim 33, wherein said first, second,third, and fourth loss/gain coefficient profiles respectively compriseconstant values α₁, α₂, α₃, and α₄ along said first, second, third, andfourth segments, respectively, wherein α₁ and α₂ are each less than 0.5,and wherein α₃ and α₄ are each greater than 1.0, and wherein saidoptical communications link further comprises: a fifth fiber spanpositioned between said first fiber span and said third fiber span, saidfifth fiber span including a fifth fiber line, said fifth fiber linecomprising a fifth fiber segment and having a fifth loss/gaincoefficient profile, a fifth second-order dispersion coefficientprofile, and a fifth nonlinear coefficient-power product profile; and asixth fiber span positioned between said fourth fiber span and saidsecond fiber span, said sixth fiber span including a sixth fiber line,said sixth fiber line comprising a sixth fiber segment and having asixth loss/gain coefficient profile, a sixth second-order dispersioncoefficient profile, and a sixth nonlinear coefficient-power productprofile; wherein said fifth and sixth fiber spans are configured suchthat (i) said sixth loss/gain coefficient profile along said sixth fibersegment is in substantial scaled translational symmetry with said fifthloss/gain coefficient profile along said fifth fiber segment by a thirdconstant, (ii) said sixth second-order dispersion coefficient profilealong said sixth fiber segment is in substantial scaled translationalsymmetry with said fifth second-order dispersion coefficient profileoppositely signed along said fifth fiber segment by said third constant,and (iii) said sixth nonlinear coefficient-power product profile alongsaid sixth fiber segment is in substantial scaled translational symmetrywith said fifth nonlinear coefficient-power product profile along saidfifth fiber segment by said third constant, whereby progressivecompensation along said sixth fiber segment of at least one nonlinearityintroduced along said fifth fiber segment is facilitated.
 35. Theoptical communications link of claim 21, said first and second fiberlines further having first and second third-order dispersion coefficientprofiles, respectively, wherein said second third-order dispersioncoefficient profile along said second fiber segment is in substantialscaled translational symmetry with said first third-order dispersioncoefficient profile along said first segment by said first constant. 36.The optical communications link of claim 35, wherein each of said firstand second fiber segments is a non-zero dispersion-shifted fiber(NZDSF).
 37. The optical communications link of claim 35, wherein eachof said first and second fiber segments is a dispersion-shifted fiber(DSF).
 38. The optical communications link of claim 21, wherein saidfirst constant is in the range of 0.05 to
 20. 39. The opticalcommunications link of claim 21, wherein each of said first and secondnonlinear coefficient-power product profiles comprises a lengthwiseprofile of a Kerr coefficient times a power level of the optical signalpropagating through said first and second fiber lines, respectively. 40.The optical communications link of claim 21, wherein each of said firstand second nonlinear coefficient-power product profiles comprises alengthwise profile of a Raman coefficient times a power level of theoptical signal propagating through said first and second fiber lines,respectively.
 41. An optical communications link, comprising: acontiguous series arrangement of N−1 fiber spans, 2≦N−1<10, each fiberspan i=1, . . . , N−1 comprising a primary fiber line “i” characterizedby an i^(th) parameter set [α_(i)(z), β_(2,i)(z), (γ_(g)P)_(i)(z)] inwhich α_(i)(z) is a loss/gain coefficient profile, β_(2,i)(z) is asecond-order dispersion coefficient profile, and (γ_(g)P)_(i)(z) is afirst nonlinear coefficient-power profile; and an N^(th) fiber spancomprising a primary fiber line “N” characterized by an N^(th) parameterset [α_(N)(z), β_(2,N)(z), (γ_(g)P)_(N)(z)]; wherein along each primaryfiber line “i” there is a relationship R_(i)[α_(i)(R_(i)z),−β_(2,i)(R_(i)z), (γ_(g)P)_(i)(R_(i)z)]≈[α_(N)(z), β_(2,N)(z),(γ_(g)P)_(N)(z)] with R_(i) being a real scalar constant, forfacilitating compensation of at least one nonlinear effect in an opticalsignal propagating through said N fiber spans.
 42. The opticalcommunications link of claim 41, wherein said N^(th) fiber span isimmediately adjacent to said (N−1)^(th) fiber span.
 43. The opticalcommunications link of claim 41, further comprising an optical phaseconjugator positioned between said (N−1)^(th) fiber span and said N^(th)fiber span.
 44. The optical communications link of claim 41, whereineach of said N fiber spans further comprises a secondary fiber line “i”connected to said primary fiber line “i” and characterized by respectivecontinuations of said i^(th) parameter set [α_(i)(z), β_(2,i)(z),(γ_(g)P)_(i)(z)] thereof, each secondary fiber line “i” being connectedto said primary fiber line “i” at an i^(th) location where(γ_(g)P)_(i)(z) becomes generally small compared to a maximum value[(γ_(g)P)_(i)(z)]_(MAX) thereof, wherein along each secondary fiber line“i” said relationship R_(i)[α_(i)(R_(i)z), −β_(2,i)(R_(i)z),(γ_(g)P)_(i)(R_(i)z)] [α_(N)(z), β_(2,N)(z), (γ_(g)P)_(N)(z)] is notsatisfied, said non-satisfaction accommodating length variations in saidN secondary fiber lines designed to achieve predetermined target valuesfor accumulated second-order dispersion for each of said N fiber spans,said non-satisfaction not substantially confounding results of saidcompensation of said at least one nonlinear effect due to relatively lowpower levels in said N secondary fiber lines.
 45. The opticalcommunications link of claim 44, wherein each of said N primary fiberlines is a transmission single-mode fiber having a constant loss/gaincoefficient profile value less than 0.5 therealong, and wherein each ofsaid N secondary fiber lines is a dispersion compensating fiber having aconstant loss/gain coefficient profile value greater than 1.0.
 46. Theoptical communications link of claim 41, wherein R_(i) is between 0.05and 20 for each of said N−1 fiber spans.
 47. An optical communicationslink for guiding a wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) optical signalbetween a first node and a second node, the optical signal having aplurality of channels, comprising: a first fiber span receiving theoptical signal from the first node and having Kerr nonlinear effectsintroducing ghost-pulse artifacts into at least one of the channels,said first fiber span being dispersion-compensated; a second fiber spantransferring the optical signal to the second node and having Kerrnonlinear effects similar to those of said first fiber span introducingsimilar ghost-pulse artifacts into said at least one channel; and aself-phase modulating device positioned between said first and secondfiber spans, comprising an array of self-phase modulators correspondingrespectively to each of said plurality of channels configured such thatsaid ghost-pulse artifacts introduced by said first fiber span aresubstantially reduced upon arrival of said optical signal at said secondnode.
 48. The optical communications link of claim 47, each of saidself-phase modulators introducing an approximately 180-degree phaseshift at a nominal power level of pulse peaks of an associated one ofsaid plurality of channels.
 49. The optical communications link of claim47, said self-phase modulating device comprising a WDM demultiplexercoupling said first fiber span to said self-phase modulators and a WDMmultiplexer coupling said self-phase modulators to said second fiberspan.
 50. The optical communications link of claim 47, wherein saidself-phase modulators are selected from the group consisting of: Kerroptical fibers, nonlinear lithium niobate waveguides, and semiconductoroptical amplifiers.
 51. The optical communications link of claim 50,wherein said self-phase modulators each have a dispersion characteristicdesigned to limit spectral broadening of the phase-modulated pulses inthe associated channel.
 52. An optical fiber pair for use in anonlinearity-managed optical communications link, comprising: a firstoptical fiber designed for long-distance transport of optical signalswith minimized attenuation, said first optical fiber being off-the-shelfand being characterized by a first loss coefficient and a firstsecond-order dispersion coefficient; and a second optical fiber designedfor dispersion compensation and having a second loss coefficient and asecond second-order dispersion coefficient, said second optical fiberbeing fabricated such that a first ratio of said second second-orderdispersion coefficient to said second loss coefficient is substantiallyequal to a second ratio of said first second-order dispersioncoefficient to said first loss coefficient oppositely signed.
 53. Theoptical fiber pair of claim 51, wherein said first loss coefficient isless than 0.5, and wherein said second loss coefficient is greater than1.0.
 54. An integrated dispersion-compensating module for installationat an electrically powered amplifying location of an opticalcommunications link, the optical communications link having first andsecond transmission fiber lines of known first and second lengths, knownfirst and second loss/gain coefficient profiles, and known first andsecond second-order dispersion coefficient profiles, respectively, theintegrated dispersion-compensating module comprising: a firstdispersion-compensating fiber line connected to said first transmissionfiber line and having a third loss/gain coefficient profile designed forsubstantial scaled translational symmetry with said second loss/gaincoefficient profile and a third second-order dispersion coefficientprofile designed for substantial scaled translational symmetry with saidsecond second-order dispersion coefficient profile oppositely signed bysaid first constant; and a second dispersion-compensating fiber lineconnected to said first dispersion-compensating fiber line; wherein saidsecond dispersion-compensating fiber line has a length selected suchthat an accumulated dispersion associated with said first and seconddispersion-compensating fiber lines compensates an accumulateddispersion associated with said first transmission fiber line within afirst predetermined tolerance for said known length of said firsttransmission fiber line.
 55. The integrated dispersion-compensatingmodule of claim 54, said second transmission fiber line being furthercharacterized by a first nonlinear coefficient profile at a firstnominal input power level, wherein said first dispersion-compensatingfiber line has a second nonlinear coefficient profile designed forsubstantial scaled translational symmetry with said first nonlinearcoefficient profile by a second constant.
 56. The integrateddispersion-compensating module of claim 54, further comprising third andfourth dispersion-compensating fiber lines commonly packaged with saidfirst and second dispersion-compensating fiber lines, said thirddispersion-compensating fiber line for connection to said secondtransmission fiber line and designed to have a fourth loss/gaincoefficient profile in substantial scaled translational symmetry withsaid first loss/gain coefficient profile by a third constant and afourth second-order dispersion profile in substantial scaledtranslational symmetry with said first second-order dispersioncoefficient profile oppositely signed by said fourth constant, saidfourth dispersion-compensating fiber line being connected to said thirddispersion-compensating fiber line, wherein said fourthdispersion-compensating fiber line has a length selected such that anaccumulated dispersion associated with said third and fourthdispersion-compensating fiber lines compensates an accumulateddispersion associated with said second transmission fiber line within asecond predetermined tolerance for said known length of said secondtransmission fiber line.
 57. The integrated dispersion-compensatingmodule of claim 54, said optical communications link being designed topropagate an optical signal in a direction of propagation from saidfirst transmission fiber line toward said second transmission fiberline, wherein said integrated dispersion-compensating module isconfigured for installation prior to said first transmission fiber linerelative to said direction of propagation.
 58. The integrateddispersion-compensating module of claim 54, said optical communicationslink being designed to propagate an optical signal in a direction fromsaid first transmission fiber line toward said second transmission fiberline, wherein said integrated dispersion-compensating module isconfigured for installation between said first and second transmissionfiber lines relative to said direction of propagation.
 59. An opticalcommunications link, comprising: a first fiber span including a firstfiber line, said first fiber line comprising a first fiber segment; anda second fiber span including a second fiber line, said second fiberline comprising a second fiber segment; wherein said first and secondfiber lines are in substantial scaled translational symmetry by a firstcommon scaling factor along said first and second fiber segments withrespect to a second-order dispersion coefficient profile (oppositelysigned) and with respect to at least one of a loss/gain coefficientprofile and a nonlinear coefficient-power product profile forfacilitating progressive compensation along said second fiber segment ofat least one nonlinearity introduced along said first fiber segment. 60.The optical communications link of claim 59, said substantial scaledtranslational symmetry by said first common scaling factorcharacterizing a relationship between a first profile and a secondprofile if the first profile, when expanded along a first axis by saidfirst common scaling factor and contracted along a second axis by saidfirst common scaling factor, is in substantial correspondence with saidsecond profile.
 61. The optical communications link of claim 59, furthercomprising an optical phase conjugator optically coupled between saidfirst and second fiber spans.
 62. The optical communications link ofclaim 61, an optical signal propagating in a direction of propagationfrom said first fiber span to said second fiber span, furthercomprising: a third fiber span positioned prior to said optical phaseconjugator relative to the direction of propagation, said third fiberspan including a third fiber line, said third fiber line comprising athird fiber segment; a fourth fiber span positioned subsequent to saidoptical phase conjugator relative to the direction of propagation, thefourth fiber span including a fourth fiber line, said fourth fiber linecomprising a fourth fiber segment; wherein said third and fourth fiberlines are in substantial scaled translational symmetry along said thirdand fourth fiber segments by a second common scaling factor with respectto a second-order dispersion coefficient profile (oppositely signed) andwith respect to at least one of a loss/gain coefficient profile and anonlinear coefficient-power product profile for facilitating progressivecompensation along said fourth fiber segment of at least onenonlinearity introduced along said third fiber segment.
 63. The opticalcommunications link of claim 62, wherein said first and second fiberlines are transmission single mode fibers, and wherein said third andfourth fiber lines are dispersion compensating fibers, said third fiberline designed for one of compensation and precompensation of dispersionin said first fiber line, said fourth fiber line designed for one ofcompensation and precompensation of dispersion in said second fiberline.
 64. The optical communications link of claim 63, said fiber spansand said optical conjugator being arranged in the following orderrelative to the direction of propagation: first fiber span, third fiberspan, optical conjugator, second fiber span, and fourth fiber span. 65.The optical communications link of claim 63, said fiber spans and saidoptical conjugator being arranged in the following order relative to thedirection of propagation: third fiber span, first fiber span, opticalconjugator, second fiber span, and fourth fiber span.
 66. The opticalcommunications link of claim 63, said fiber spans and said opticalconjugator being arranged in the following order relative to thedirection of propagation: first fiber span, third fiber span, opticalconjugator, fourth fiber span, and second fiber span.
 67. The opticalcommunications link of claim 63, further comprising: fifth and seventhfiber spans positioned prior to said optical phase conjugator relativeto the direction of propagation, said fifth and seventh fiber spansincluding fifth and seventh fiber lines, respectively, said fifth andseventh fiber lines comprising fifth and seventh fiber segments,respectively; sixth and eighth fiber spans positioned subsequent to saidoptical phase conjugator relative to the direction of propagation, saidsixth and eighth fiber spans including sixth and eighth fiber lines,respectively, said sixth and eighth fiber lines comprising sixth andeighth fiber segments, respectively; wherein said fifth and sixth fiberlines are in substantial scaled translational symmetry along said fifthand sixth fiber segments by a third common scaling factor with respectto a second-order dispersion coefficient profile (oppositely signed) andwith respect to at least one of a loss/gain coefficient profile and anonlinear coefficient-power product profile for facilitating progressivecompensation along said sixth fiber segment of at least one nonlinearityintroduced along said fifth fiber segment; and wherein said seventh andeighth fiber lines are in substantial scaled translational symmetryalong said seventh and eighth fiber segments by a third common scalingfactor with respect to a second-order dispersion coefficient profile(oppositely signed) and with respect to at least one of a loss/gaincoefficient profile and a nonlinear coefficient-power product profilefor facilitating progressive compensation along said eighth fibersegment of at least one nonlinearity introduced along said seventh fibersegment.
 68. The optical communications link of claim 67, wherein saidfirst, second, fifth, and sixth fiber lines are transmission single modefibers, and wherein said third, fourth, seventh, and eighth fiber linesare dispersion compensating fibers, said third fiber line designed forone of compensation and precompensation of dispersion in said firstfiber line, said fourth fiber line designed for one of compensation andprecompensation of dispersion in said second fiber line, said seventhfiber line designed for one of compensation and precompensation ofdispersion in said fifth fiber line, said eighth fiber line designed forone of compensation and precompensation of dispersion in said sixthfiber line.
 69. The optical communications link of claim 68, said fiberspans and said optical conjugator being arranged in the following orderrelative to the direction of propagation: first fiber span, third fiberspan, fifth fiber span, seventh fiber span, optical conjugator, secondfiber span, fourth fiber span, sixth fiber span, and eighth fiber span.70. The optical communications link of claim 68, said fiber spans andsaid optical conjugator being arranged in the following order relativeto the direction of propagation: first fiber span, third fiber span,seventh fiber span, fifth fiber span, optical conjugator, second fiberspan, fourth fiber span, eighth fiber span, and sixth fiber span,wherein said third and seventh fiber lines are packaged into a firstcommon dispersion compensating module, and wherein said fourth andeighth fiber lines are packaged into a second common dispersioncompensating module.
 71. The optical communications link of claim 59, anoptical signal propagating in a direction of propagation from said firstfiber span to said second fiber span, further comprising: a third fiberspan positioned prior to said second fiber span relative to thedirection of propagation, said third fiber span including a third fiberline, said third fiber line comprising a third fiber segment; a fourthfiber span positioned subsequent to third fiber span relative to thedirection of propagation, the fourth fiber span including a fourth fiberline, said fourth fiber line comprising a fourth fiber segment; whereinsaid third and fourth fiber lines are in substantial scaledtranslational symmetry along said third and fourth fiber segments by asecond common scaling factor with respect to a second-order dispersioncoefficient profile (oppositely signed) and with respect to at least oneof a loss/gain coefficient profile and a nonlinear coefficient-powerproduct profile for facilitating progressive compensation along saidfourth fiber segment of at least one nonlinearity introduced along saidthird fiber segment.
 72. The optical communications link of claim 71,wherein said first and second fiber lines are transmission single modefibers, and wherein said third and fourth fiber lines are dispersioncompensating fibers, said third fiber line designed for one ofcompensation and precompensation of dispersion in said first fiber line,said fourth fiber line designed for one of compensation andprecompensation of dispersion in said second fiber line.
 73. The opticalcommunications link of claim 71, said fiber spans being arranged in thefollowing order relative to the direction of propagation: first fiberspan, third fiber span, second fiber span, and fourth fiber span. 74.The optical communications link of claim 71, said fiber spans beingarranged in the following order relative to the direction ofpropagation: third fiber span, first fiber span, second fiber span, andfourth fiber span.
 75. The optical communications link of claim 71, saidfiber spans and said optical conjugator being arranged in the followingorder relative to the direction of propagation: first fiber span, thirdfiber span, fourth fiber span, and second fiber span, wherein said thirdand fourth fiber lines are packaged into a common dispersioncompensating module.
 76. The optical communications link of claim 71,further comprising: fifth and seventh fiber spans positioned prior tosaid second fiber span relative to the direction of propagation, saidfifth and seventh fiber spans including fifth and seventh fiber lines,respectively, said fifth and seventh fiber lines comprising fifth andseventh fiber segments, respectively; sixth and eighth fiber spanspositioned subsequent to said third fiber span relative to the directionof propagation, said sixth and eighth fiber spans including sixth andeighth fiber lines, respectively, said sixth and eighth fiber linescomprising sixth and eighth fiber segments, respectively; wherein saidfifth and sixth fiber lines are in substantial scaled translationalsymmetry along said fifth and sixth fiber segments by a third commonscaling factor with respect to a second-order dispersion coefficientprofile (oppositely signed) and with respect to at least one of aloss/gain coefficient profile and a nonlinear coefficient-power productprofile for facilitating progressive compensation along said sixth fibersegment of at least one nonlinearity introduced along said fifth fibersegment; and wherein said seventh and eighth fiber lines are insubstantial scaled translational symmetry along said seventh and eighthfiber segments by a third common scaling factor with respect to asecond-order dispersion coefficient profile (oppositely signed) and withrespect to at least one of a loss/gain coefficient profile and anonlinear coefficient-power product profile for facilitating progressivecompensation along said eighth fiber segment of at least onenonlinearity introduced along said seventh fiber segment.
 77. Theoptical communications link of claim 76, wherein said first, second,fifth, and sixth fiber lines are transmission single mode fibers, andwherein said third, fourth, seventh, and eighth fiber lines aredispersion compensating fibers, said third fiber line designed for oneof compensation and precompensation of dispersion in said first fiberline, said fourth fiber line designed for one of compensation andprecompensation of dispersion in said second fiber line, said seventhfiber line designed for one of compensation and precompensation ofdispersion in said fifth fiber line, said eighth fiber line designed forone of compensation and precompensation of dispersion in said sixthfiber line.
 78. The optical communications link of claim 77, said fiberspans being arranged in the following order relative to the direction ofpropagation: first fiber span, third fiber span, fifth fiber span,seventh fiber span, second fiber span, fourth fiber span, sixth fiberspan, and eighth fiber span.
 79. The optical communications link ofclaim 77, said fiber spans being arranged in the following orderrelative to the direction of propagation: one of said first and thirdfiber spans, the other of said first and third fiber spans, fifth fiberspan, seventh fiber span, fourth fiber span, second fiber span, one ofsaid sixth and eight fiber spans, and the other of said sixth and eightfiber spans, wherein said fourth and seventh fiber lines are packagedinto a common dispersion compensating module.
 80. The opticalcommunications link of claim 77, said fiber spans being arranged in thefollowing order relative to the direction of propagation: seventh fiberspan, fifth fiber span, first fiber span, third fiber span, fourth fiberspan, second fiber span, eighth fiber span, and sixth fiber span,wherein said third and fourth fiber lines are packaged into a commondispersion compensating module.
 81. An optical communications linkcomprising first and second fiber lines in substantial scaledtranslational symmetry by a common scaling factor with respect to asecond-order dispersion coefficient profile (oppositely signed) and withrespect to at least one of a loss/gain coefficient profile and anonlinear coefficient-power product profile for facilitating progressivecompensation along said second fiber line of at least one nonlinearityintroduced along said first fiber line.
 82. The optical communicationslink of claim 81, said substantial scaled translational symmetry by saidcommon scaling factor being characterized in that, for a first profileand a second profile, the first profile is in substantial scaledtranslational symmetry by said common scaling factor with the secondprofile if the first profile, when expanded along a first axis by saidcommon scaling factor and contracted along a second axis by said commonscaling factor, is in substantial correspondence with the secondprofile.
 83. An optical communications link comprising first and secondfiber lines characterized by a loss/gain coefficient profile pair, asecond-order dispersion coefficient profile pair, and a nonlinearcoefficient-power product profile pair, wherein, for facilitatingprogressive compensation along said second fiber line of at least onenonlinearity introduced along said first fiber line, said first andsecond fiber lines are configured such that for said second-orderdispersion coefficient profile pair and at least one of said loss/gaincoefficient profile pair and said nonlinear coefficient-power productprofile pair, a first profile thereof substantially corresponds to asecond profile thereof when the first profile is expanded along a firstaxis by a common scaling factor and contracted along a second axis bythat common scaling factor.